SCHOOL TURN-AROUND (North Carolina)

One of my favorite aspects of Professional Learning Board is the many different new people and experts that I meet and am fortunate to learn from. This month it is my pleasure to introduce an educator whose dedication to improving student learning has led to wonderful results in his school, Brian Creasman of Vance County Schools, North Carolina.

Is your school moving in the right direction? Can you tell if students are learning – how can you tell? Three years ago, as the new principal of a “low performing” high school, Brian Creasman was confronted with these two questions. Mr. Creasman is a school turn-around specialist and shares with us his remarkable success and the following:

A high school classified as “low performing” obviously is not a title any teacher, administrator, student or parent wants for their school. When I stepped through the doors at the high school three years ago I knew, trust me, that we had several things that we had to address very quickly. High School Reform can come in many different forms, our reform focused on the curriculum, instructional practices, and more specifically the assessment program.

In order to answer the two questions presented earlier (1. Is your school moving in the right direction? and 2. Can you tell if students are learning and how can you tell?) a school must have an effective assessment program. Within our assessment program we emphasized the need for “standardized” or “common” formative and summative assessments. Assessment is a classic way of measuring student progress and determining a school’s success relative to district, state, and federal testing goals/requirements.

Out of everything (curriculum alignment, effective instructional strategies, etc.) I learned that for an assessment to be effective, it should also be formative. Keep in mind that effective formative assessments result in instruction that meets the needs of each student. Formative assessments allow teachers to respond to the needs of the student quickly, however more importantly it allows the student to shape instruction (both a student-centered and teacher-driven education model).

After three years, the “low performing” high school is now classified as a “School of Progress” ( in other words a school on the climb and a place to watch). The formative assessment program there continues and is constantly changing for the better. Once you have a well planned formative assessment program in place, your school will see what we experienced in my high school:

1)      A change in the culture within classrooms,
2)      Concise communication of learning goals,
3)      Varied effective instructional methods,
4)      A new understanding for student learning,
5)      Improved student engagement
with targeted student feedback and
6)      An increase in student learning!

It wasn’t until I started working on the new Formative Assessment class with Brian that I really started to study and examine my own skills, or lack thereof, as a student. After 15 years in the classroom and working across multiple types of school environments (suburban, urban, public, private, charter, etc.) I’ve wondered if indeed the more things change, the more they really stay the same.

Let me explain. Education is and always has been full of terms and trends: outcome-based, standards-based, evidence-based, research-based, and brain-based among many others. The thing is that I’ve never heard of, and can’t imagine any learning without outcomes, standards, evidence, research, the brain or otherwise.

Formative assessment is all about improving my teaching practice. Not that its all really about me (it can be all about you too) but I can see directly how by using formative assessments I can be both a better teacher and an improved student. In fact, the more I use formative assessments, the more I grow in both areas. I’m glad to be back in the classroom teaching one high school course this year and as such am able to actually implement some of the wonderful tips, practices and processes that I learn through working with the amazing educators who contribute to Professional Learning Board’s online courses.

Take the next step. Learn about and implement formative assessments in your school to discover and demonstrate for yourself, your students and your community what  happens when a school moves in a positive direction and you know students are truly learning.

You can download the accompanying online course Pocket Guide to Formative Assessment. You can also click here to see the course description or visit the Professional Learning Board Facebook page to get a coupon and save $10 on this new course.