Dear Colleagues:

In a time of more rigorous expectations for students, Compass is a tool for helping educators define high expectations.

As this year's Compass Annual Report shows, several districts that established a high bar for classroom observations led the state in student achievement gains. The same is true of 63 schools that ranked among the top in both teaching expectations and student achievement.

The same is also true for Student Learning Targets. Eighteen schools both set very ambitious targets and ranked among the state's top gaining schools. In these schools, teachers and administrators chose to set the bar high and to accelerate the rate of improvement for each child.

Students come to our classrooms having experienced different rates of success in the past. Each student is on a particular trajectory, culminating in his or her prospects after high school. Last February, as an enhancement to the Compass system, the Department committed to providing trend data that would show educators a projected score reflecting a student's historical trajectory. This week you will receive those data, called Student Achievement Trend Data.

We could take these data to be predictive of a student's future successes, but they are not and should not be taken as such. For one, there is no accurate way of projecting the future. But more important, our job as educators is to shape the future, not to accept a historical trajectory as destiny.

Instead, educators should use the information as one source to inform what they and their students will achieve together this year. The data will not serve as Student Learning Targets, for example, but the data provides background to assist in setting ambitious but reasonable Student Learning Targets. Understanding the student's historical trend will also help teachers understand the ultimate value-added score produced at the end of the year.

The data will be shared with districts this Friday, and we will be hosting webinars to walk through how to access and use the data.  Your teams should determine how best to distribute this information to schools and teachers, and I'm asking that districts treat this data with the same sensitivity as LEAP and EOC data to ensure we are protecting the privacy rights of our students. If we can do more to ensure you have access to this information and are able to use it effectively with teachers, please don't hesitate to contact your network staff.

As always, thank you for all you do for our children,

John  

John White

Louisiana Department of Education

Twitter: @LouisianaSupe

A calendar of important dates for districts has now been posted on the Department's website. The calendar will include information for the following types of events: trainings, assessments, monitoring, data submissions, deadlines, openings or releases, meetings, and other dates impacting districts statewide.

Calendar features include color-coded event titles that are clickable for more information, a search feature, weekly, monthly, and agenda view formats, and a print option.