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Strengthening school
improvement teams --
the front-line decision makers
MBRT's TEAM (The Educators Academy
of Maryland) Advisory Council identified five types of skills required for a school
improvement team to be high-functioning:
- Team Building
- Strategic Planning and Follow Through
- Leadership
- Data Utilization and Analysis
- Managing Change and Measuring
Progress
A self-assessment tool was
also developed so that teams can determine what skills they are lacking and seek ways to
obtain the skills needed. This information is available on the Decision
Support System web site, mdk12.org.
Using data to improve
instructional strategies and boost student performance
While the Maryland School
Performance Program has produced abundant and unprecedented data about school performance,
some Maryland schools charged with enacting reforms have had difficulty effectively using
these data to improve school performance. The major challenge for Maryland, and for
other states that build reform on data-based accountability, is to now translate the data
into improved instructional strategies and student performance.
MBRT, in collaboration with
the Maryland State Department of Education and with funding from the U.S. Department of
Education, has developed a Decision Support System web site that provides schools and the community-at-large push-button
access to:
- Assessment
data
- Analysis of the data
- Comparative information
- Exercises for school improvement
teams to use in developing strategies for improvement
- Benchmarks from high performing
schools
- Links to research studies and
instructional resources
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