Minnesota School Readiness Study

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Minnesota School Readiness Study

• Developmental Assessment at
• Kindergarten Entrance

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What is School Readiness?

• Readiness in the Child
• Schools readiness for children
• Family and community supports and services that
  contribute to childrens readiness

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Minnesotas Definition of School Readiness

• The skills, knowledge, behaviors and
  accomplishments that children know and can do as
  they enter school.
• Physical will-being and motor development
• Social and emotional development
• Approaches to learning
• Language development
• Cognition and general knowledge
• Creativity and the arts

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What is the purpose of the Study?

• To have the results of the Minnesota School
  Readiness Study inform the public of the progress
  towards the goal of ensuring children are ready
  for school.
• To have the results used in a manner that
  promotes childrens learning and development by
  improving early childhood programs and services.

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Assessing Young Children

• Young children develop and grow along a continuum
  and with great variability
• Authentic Assessment
• Fair to all children
• Uses familiar tasks
• Conducted in familiar settings
• Based on multiple sources
• Continuous and ongoing to show progress
• Assessment aligned with Minnesotas Early
  Learning Standards and K-12 Standards

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Recommended Practices for Assessing Young Children

• Written recommendations
• The American Educational Research Association
• The National Association for School Psychologists
• The National Association for the Education of
  Young Children
• The National Education Goal Panel
• These recommendations have a research evidence
  base and reflect the concepts that assessment of
  young children is appropriate, beneficial and
  useful if used as intended

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Work Sampling System

• Standards based observational assessment
• Three ratings
• Proficient reliably demonstrate the skills,
  knowledge or behaviors
• In Process demonstrates the skills, knowledge
  or behaviors intermittently, not consistently
• Not Yet has not begun to demonstrate the
  skills, knowledge or behaviors
• No Not Ready or Ready score

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Minnesota Environment from 2002 Forward

• Independent School Districts, local control,
  separate boundaries from counties
• Lack of unified child identifier
• Long term support of WSS in public preschools and
  in Title I
• Focus on outcomes

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Why did the study begin?

• In 2002 the Department developed a series of
  goals supporting Higher Achievement for All
  Students
• One goal was to increase the percentage of young
  children who are ready for school
• The Minnesota School Readiness Study was designed
  to track the progress towards this goal by
  assessing students at kindergarten entrance

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Study Design

• Study design based on Maryland and Floridas
  approach
• Shortened checklist based on expert teacher
  opinion, state level experts and consultation
  with Dr. Sam Meisels
• 3, 5 then 10 samples of cohorts
• First six weeks of school
• Kindergarten teachers provided free training,
  materials and 200 stipend
• Family survey piloted previous care question

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Sample versus Full Population

• Strengths of a sample
• Maintains focus on geographic boundaries as
  designed
• Efficient
• Targeted recruitment
• Protection against statewide use as an entrance
  exam or other high stakes uses

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Sample versus Full Population

• Challenges of a sample
• Not all schools, districts have the same access
  to updated, local information
• Local data across years a rarity
• Not all students receive the same level of
  support and follow through across buildings and
  districts.

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Training Support of Assessors

• New teachers receive Introduction to WSS
• Online training available for study orientation
• Pearson provides support for training teachers
  and principals on using WSO
• Online
• Refresher on WSS
• Focused sessions on assessing across cultures and
  on using the data after it is finalized

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Data Reports Usage

• Teachers
• Principals
• Districts
• State
• Each use data with their decision-makers to
  adjust policy, align curriculum and assessment
  and track changes over time where possible.

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Challenges

• Providing support to assessors
• Balancing focus on child outcomes with
  appropriate interventions
• Ensuring supports to local uses of the data for
  community planning

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Lessons Learned

• Telephone surveys of parents critical to better
  understanding previous experiences without unique
  identifier, monitoring SLDS opportunities
• Provide stipends indexed to the number of
  students or classes
• Multiple points over time would be beneficial,
  several initiatives to follow through
  kindergarten not yet supported
• Build a parallel system to simultaneously assess
  ready schools

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Changes Enhancements

• Exploring further validating the shortened
  checklist with Dr. Bagnato and Dr. Suen,
  potentially expanding annual analyses originally
  developed by Dr. Peg Burchinal
• Working with MN Head Start Association and IDEA
  staff on developing additional supports for
  assessors
• Adding telephone support for teachers with less
  than 3 years experience in WSS with the 2009
  cohort to provide one on one support

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Comments Questions

• For further information, contact
• Avisia Whiteman
• Avisia.Whiteman_at_state.mn.us
• 651-582-8329

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Preview of Embargoed 2008 Results

• Anticipated release within the next week.
• Report will be available at
• http//www.education.state.mn.us/MDE/Learning_Supp
  ort/Early_Learning_Services/Kindergarten/Minnesota
  _School_Readiness_Studies/index.html

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Results over the years - Embargoed
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Results over the years - Embargoed
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Results over the years - Embargoed
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Regression Results 2008 - Embargoed

• Higher household income increased the likelihood
  of In Process or Proficient in all domains.
• Speaking English increased the likelihood of In
  Process or Proficient in Language and Literacy
  and Mathematical Thinking.
• Race and ethnicity was statistically related to
  findings in Personal Social Development.
• Being a girl increased the likelihood of being In
  Process or Proficient in all domains.

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Comments Questions

• For further information, contact
• Avisia Whiteman
• Avisia.Whiteman_at_state.mn.us
• 651-582-8329