State Monitoring of Low-Performing Schools: Examining Schoolwide Instructional Quality as a Leading Indicator of Improvement in Academic Outcomes

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), like other state education agencies, recognizes that a key lever to turning around low-performing schools is the quality of instruction and thus embeds a schoolwide instructional quality measure into its monitoring process. M...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAERA Online Paper Repository
Main Authors Therriault, Susan Bowles, Walston, Jill, Yibing, Li, Pan, Jingtong, Champagne, Erica
Format Report
LanguageEnglish
Published AERA Online Paper Repository 21.04.2020
Subjects
Academic Achievement
Achievement Gains
Classroom Environment
Educational Improvement
Educational Quality
Elementary Secondary Education
English Instruction
Instructional Effectiveness
Language Arts
Low Achievement
Mathematics Achievement
Observation
Outcomes of Education
School Effectiveness
State Programs
Student Characteristics
Massachusetts
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Summary:The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), like other state education agencies, recognizes that a key lever to turning around low-performing schools is the quality of instruction and thus embeds a schoolwide instructional quality measure into its monitoring process. Massachusetts' schoolwide quality instruction score uses Teachstone's Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) tool to conduct observations in a sample of classrooms. In state-identified low-performing schools, there were significant positive relationships between schoolwide observation scores and school-level academic growth in both ELA and math, and in ELA academic achievement. Findings are important, because they suggest it is possible for a state to balance capacity limitations and still use an instructional quality measure that is predictive of improved student outcomes.
DOI:10.3102/1572871