The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires schools and districts identified for comprehensive support and improvement (CSI) to complete a needs assessment. Aside from this requirement, however, any school or district can hugely benefit from the implementation of a strong needs assessment.
What is a needs assessment?
A needs assessment is a systemic process set up by schools and districts to:
identify strengths and weaknesses of a school/district,
understand contexts and constraints of the school/district
pinpoint root causes for underperformance
develop an improvement plan that addresses underperformance
The anatomy of a needs assessment
A strong needs assessment requires substantial data analysis on:
Context (school demographics, policies, historical performance, etc.)
Students (outcomes and performance, engagement, opportunities)
Teacher and staff policies and procedures (hiring, placement, evaluation, advancement, termination, etc.)
Professional practice (leadership and decision-making, professional development, curriculum and instruction)
Climate and school culture (public perception, stakeholder engagement) Stakeholder support
Vendor/partner practices and outcomes
*For a detailed layout, visit this guide by Julie Corbett and Sam Redding from The Center on School Turnaround.
A substantial element of the needs assessment should inform administrators about strengths and weaknesses in student outcomes and performances (assessments, standardized tests, graduation rates, etc.) This will require tapping into both qualitative data from classroom feedback as well as quantitative data provided by the state and/or data vendors. As long-time data geeks, we are excited to share with you the 5 reasons why we believe data analytics is your best-friend when analyzing student performance and outcomes for a needs assessment.
Data helps validate or debunk your hypotheses about student performance When we see under-performance, it is a powerful instinct to conveniently turn to previously held assumptions about existing issues in the school/district. “We have always performed worse at math” or “We never allocate enough resources towards curriculum development in elementary grades.” Assumptions like these, while loosely based on historical data, are not adequate when it comes to understanding the ever-changing landscape of a school or district. Hypothesizing is helpful only when the hypotheses can be tested, then confirmed, or debunked by quality data.
You can use data to identify specific performance gaps between student groups Being able to identify the gaps in performance between target and non-target groups is hugely beneficial when preparing a needs assessment. Not only will we spot underperformance, but also the specific groups of students who are underperforming, the specific subjects they are underperforming in, and how severely they are underperforming. This information will lay a solid foundation for deeper root cause analyses.
Data directs your focus to the right place when developing improvement plans Once we know where students are underperforming, we can look for deeper root causes by collecting more qualitative and quantitative data on the specific groups of students. This data can help direct improvement strategies by proportionately allocating resources between addressing issues with severely underperforming pockets while maintaining adequate performance in other groups.
Data provides transparency and clarity in communication with stakeholders To encourage stakeholders to adopt an appetite for change and improvement, we must first establish a need for change. Coherent data can help us achieve this by providing more transparency and clarity into the findings in the needs assessment. Clever use of data analytics such as infographics, comprehensive reports, and dynamic dashboards can be a valuable support in describing the current situation, future goals, and the path to reach those goals.
Data brings evidence to reaffirm or reshape your improvement plan As we implement our improvement plan, consistent review of data and feedback is especially helpful in either validating or redirecting next steps. If a new reading comprehension initiative is showing great results with certain groups of students, consider expanding its implementation to other groups. However, if something is not working, we can use data to determine changes to the plan or decide if we need to formulate a new plan.
Comments