1. VASS Legislative Conference
Charlottesville
October 24, 2016

2. Vice-President Virginia Board of Education
Mrs. Joan Wodiska
Vice-President Virginia Board of Education

3. The Virginia State Board of Education Overview

4. Cultural Shift: Our Shared Work
to Collaboration
Punish
to Shared Responsibility
Local Division Responsibility
to Focus on Continuous Improvement
Identification of Failure
to Innovation
Compliance

5. Contextual Shifts: Demands on K-12
High academic expectations for all
Global economic job competition & demand skilled worker
Virginia’s student needs
More poverty
More English Language Learners (with literacy challenges in their native languages)
More high-service special education students (such as Autism)

6. Summary of SOQ Recommendations
Recommended Staffing Changes
FY 2018 Fiscal Impact
Assistant Principal
One for every 400 students
$71.4 million
Principal
One full-time in every elementary school
$6.8 million
School Counselor
One for every 250 students
$82.4 million
School Psychologist
One for every 1,000 students
$42.7 million
School Social Worker
$48.7 million
School Nurse
One for every 550 students
$1.8 million
Eliminate the cap on funded support positions
$339.6 million

7. Superintendent of Public Instruction
Dr. Steven R. Staples
Superintendent of Public Instruction

9. Board Identified Priority Areas for Consideration for Student Preparation
EXPAND the use of performance assessments and REDUCE the number of credits verified by SOL tests
INCREASE internships and work-based learning experiences
INCREASE career exposure, exploration, and planning
EMPHASIZE the “5 Cs” (critical thinking, creative thinking, collaboration, communication, and citizenship)

10. Mechanisms of Accountability
School Quality Profiles
Accreditation
(State)
Every Student Succeeds Act
(Federal)
Standards of Quality
Public reporting function
Features important indicators of school quality
Educational effectiveness function
Measures reflects highest priorities
Directs levels of support/intervention
(school improvement)
Accountability
(Reporting to Public & Driving Continuous Improvement)
So, finally, we move into the mechanisms of accountability which reflect the ways in which our expectations for accountability are communicated.
You ‘ve discussed at length the redesign of the school quality profiles, which is the primary way in which our stakeholders typically access information about schools.
We’ve also begun the discussion about state accreditation (which will continue in the next few slides) and in the next several months conversations about the new federal education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act, will also occur. These two systems, ideally aligned, represent the educational effectiveness function and reflect your highest priorities for schools.
Finally, the standards of quality, which you discussed this morning, reflect the essential elements of schools and are designed to ensure the necessary resources are in place.
Essential elements of schools function
Ensures necessary resources are in place

11. Mechanisms of Accountability
School Quality Profiles
Accreditation
(State)
Every Student Succeeds Act
(Federal)
Standards of Quality
Public reporting function
Features important indicators of school quality
Educational effectiveness function
Measures reflects highest priorities
Directs levels of support/intervention
(school improvement)
Accountability
(Reporting to Public & Driving Continuous Improvement)
For the remainder of the brief, we’ll focus on the orange bubble – state accreditation – but I’ll also reference how state accreditation aligns with the other mechanisms, particularly ESSA.
Essential elements of schools function
Ensures necessary resources are in place

12. Previous Conversations about Accreditation
Virginia Accreditation Model Reflects:
Framework aligned with priorities for school performance
Multiple measures to examine student achievement and opportunities
Matrix model to support targeted, strategic interventions
Transparency in school effectiveness and quality
Aligned with the overall system of accountability, the Virginia accreditation model also reflects several key tenets –
a focus on select priorities for school performance,
multiple measures to examine both student achievement and opportunities to learn,
a matrix model that supports targeted,
strategic interventions and increased transparency in how Virginia measures school effectiveness and quality.

13. Criteria for Selecting Quality Accreditation Metrics
Research indicates metric is related to academic performance
Standardized data collection procedures exist across schools and divisions
Data for metric are reliable and valid
Metric is modifiable through school-level policies and practices
Metric meaningfully differentiates among schools based on progress of all students and student subgroups
Metric does not unfairly impact one type/group of schools or students
School-level metric is moderately to strongly correlated with school-level pass rates on state assessments
So the quality of any accreditation model is really based on the quality of the metrics selected. This slide shows the process we developed and have already started to examine the quality of each of the metrics we’re considering in the accreditation matrix.
I’ll expand on a few of criteria
4th down on the list – metric is modifiable through school-level policies and practices. If accreditation occurs at the school level, then we want to make sure the things we hold schools accountable for are actually within their control.
6th on the list – metric does not unfairly impact one type/group of schools or students. We want to ensure our metrics uniquely reflect school quality and add value when identifying struggling schools and are not just different lenses for looking at the same issue.
Last but not least – school-level metric is correlated with school-level pass rates; so, we want to make sure that when the metric is aggregated from the student level to the school-level, it still retains its relationship with student academic performance

14. Questions? Mrs. Joan Woodiska
Vice-President, Virginia Board of Education
Dr. Steven R. Staples
Superintendent of Public Instruction