"One day I walked through the ninth grade English classes, and they were all teaching foreshadowing. That's important because we want equity. We want all the students to experience the same curriculum, and before, that wasn't happening."

—Frances Holdbrooks, Assistant Superintendent, Lindsay Unified School District

About Lindsay Unified School District
Nestled in the San Joaquin valley, Lindsay, California, is a farming community that relies on the production and distribution of oranges, lemons, and grapefruit as a key industry. It takes a large number of migrant workers to keep this agricultural center humming, which in turn, creates unique challenges for the Lindsay Unified School District (LUSD). Of the district's 3,600 students, 60% are classified as English language learners (ELL). There are nine schools in the district: five elementary, one junior high school, one high school, one alternative school, and one community day school.

The Challenge
Districts with a high population of ELL are faced with the challenge of making the same curriculum accessible to all students. Measuring ELL performance against English language development (ELD) standards is important, and the ability to know which students need intervention is critical. To help students master learning objectives before state exams at the end of the year, teachers needed a way to assess performance and adjust instruction to ensure that all students were learning the same materials at a pace and level appropriate for their abilities.

Multifaceted Approach to Success
Frances Holdbrooks, assistant superintendent for LUSD, along with administrators and principals, explored how outside assessment expertise combined with a technology solution might help their schools better serve students and increase achievement on a district-wide basis. To teach all students consistently, "we'd been trying to find a way pull our data together and make the results easy to use for our staff," Holdbrooks said.

Professional development—LUSD selected a standards-based professional development solution that would support staff understanding of assessment data and show them how to use the data most effectively to increase student achievement. The program would help build in accountability at the school level and enable the district to:

• Guarantee the opportunity for all students to learn through agreed-upon standards
• Analyze and act on student performance data
• Improve student performance by changing classroom practices

Not only would students be prepared to pass state tests, they also, and more importantly, would truly master their learning objectives.

3 Modules to Help Increase Student Performance
Assessment experts collaborated with teachers and administrators to build a local accountability system over nine training days.

Module 1. In the first three days of training, the team identified up to twenty essential standards per subject that each student would learn. An action plan was developed for principals to monitor the implementation and instruction of these standards in every classroom. The district team, supported by outside facilitators, also constructed a calendar of which standards would be tested during quarterly benchmark assessments.

Module 2. During the next three days, the team built an assessment system. They defined performance levels, guidelines for scoring scales for each benchmark assessment, and specifications for the assessments to ensure a reliable score. They also defined another action plan for principals to help them monitor the implementation of formative assessments and use the results in collaborative planning groups.

Module 3. Finally, the team focused on developing true, data-driven lessons. They created essential links between assessment results, lesson plans, and targeted instructional strategies. They set guidelines for building lessons by working backwards from the desired results, and defined types of lesson objectives and their purposes. In addition, they modeled products of student work to define levels of performance. Together, the team developed collaborative planning strategies to build common formative assessments for lessons that teach the essential standards.

Results
Holdbrooks looked back at those nine days as a pivotal time for the district. "Because there was such extensive training and buy-in from our teachers, we're seeing a really cohesive approach to instruction district-wide. It's a very exciting time for us."

LUSD's systemic changes paved the way for improved performance. Jim Grasell, LUSD's director of research and evaluation, shared, "The idea is for teachers to have fast access to the data, so that they can make changes or improvements right away at the classroom level. Before, our data came too late. All we had were state tests, which were taken at the end of the year. That's just not as useful as constantly looking at data throughout the year and making adjustments."

The district is now able to provide all learners with continuity of instruction. As Holdbrooks noted, "That continuity is important because we want equity. We want all students to experience the same curriculum, and before, that wasn't happening."

Holdbrooks is finding more equity for English language learners, too. "We needed a better way to track our ELL standards. Some kids move into English language arts when they need to be working on English language development. Now, when we look at benchmark assessments, we can also look at the ELD standards and make sure that we are addressing ELL needs at the appropriate instructional levels."

Conclusion
LUSD now administers three benchmark assessments per year in K–12 language arts and math. The high school is in the process of developing the same systems for history, social science, and science. With the program's help, these assessments would help pinpoint students' problem areas, even using the carefully crafted wrong answers that students choose. The district was also able to refine their assessment development to include critical diagnostic measures, which can be used to inform and improve instruction. With this data, teachers are able to collaborate in brand new ways, and share information and ideas on how to intervene more effectively.