Race to the Top and Personalized Learning: A Report Card
In 2012, the federal Race to the Top district competition awarded 16 school districts, educational cooperatives, and charter school districts with more than $350 million in total grant funding to support efforts to personalize learning and improve student achievement.
Race to the Top and Personalized Learning: A Report Card
In 2012, the federal Race to the Top district competition awarded 16 school districts, educational cooperatives, and charter school districts with more than $350 million in total grant funding to support efforts to personalize learning and improve student achievement.
A year and a half later, districts are beginning to see the outcomes from those efforts, ranging from upgraded professional-development programs to technological overhauls. Education Week contacted all the districts, listed here by the size of the grant awarded, for progress reports on how they have used the grant funding, and what their plans are for the road ahead.
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Green River Regional and Ohio Valley Educational Cooperatives
- Bowling Green, Ky., and Shelbyville, Ky.
- Enrollment: 590,000 across 22 local districts
- Racial/ethnic profile: No available average for combined districts
- Students qualifying for free and reduced-price meals: 61 percent
Race to the Top award: $41 million
Learn more about this district’s goals related to personalized learning, the challenges faced in reaching them, and positive outcomes. Read more ▼
- Personalized Learning Goals
- Build relationships and collaborations with employees known as Preschool Pals and private child-care centers to promote kindergarten readiness through intentional literacy and math strategies.
- Ensure educators provide opportunities for students to develop socio-emotional skills and behaviors and noncognitive skills like critical thinking and problem solving that will prepare them for life after high school.
- Provide supports and structures, like cognitive coaches and systemwide collaboration, for professional learning among educators for a deeper learning and understanding of standards, assessments, and tasks.
- Support the development of teacher leaders, educators selected from each school who collaborate and share their knowledge with other teachers.
- Analyze annually summative-assessment data, noncognitive data, and a variety of other data to provide feedback on progress.
- Challenges
- A teacher professional development program was not included in the original plan, but evolved from the first year.
- Positive Outcomes
- Provided training program for teachers and smaller groups of staff members who, in turn, then work with students to impact school culture and climate.
- Created a greater emphasis on student leadership.
- Schools are seeing improvements on some components of school climate.
- Every school has crafted its own personalized learning plan.
Puget Sound Educational Service District
- Renton, Wash.
- Enrollment: 390,000 across 35 local districts and over 200 private schools. (The seven grant districts have a combined enrollment of 147,000.)
- Racial/ethnic profile: 33 percent white, 24 percent Hispanic, 20 percent Asian/Pacific Islander, 14 percent African-American, 3 percent Native Hawaiian/other Pacific Islander, 1 percent American Indian/Alaskan Native, 8 percent other
- Students qualifying for free and reduced-price meals: 35 percent
Race to the Top award: $40 million
Learn more about this district’s goals related to personalized learning, the challenges faced in reaching them, and positive outcomes. Read more ▼
- Personalized Learning Goals
- Build a strong, regionwide system to ensure that all students are kindergarten ready.
- Establish a high-functioning P-3 grade system.
- Advance teacher practice and principal leadership, with a focus on developing personalized learning environments in the areas of English/language arts, science, and math for high-needs students.
- Broaden college-level course selection and strengthen postsecondary success among students.
- Encourage partnerships between schools, community-based organizations and families in order to provide 24/7 support for learning both in school and out of school.
- Challenges
- There is a need to build stronger progress-monitoring systems in order to use real-time data to make course corrections as the district learns what projects are working. In the first round of investment funding, not all projects had those systems in place to collect data throughout the year. New projects were funded before the impact of previous projects could be measured.
- The consortia of districts have struggled to implement multiple new initiatives simultaneously.
- Positive Outcomes
- Data show increases in kindergarten readiness from fall 2013 to fall 2014.
- State Measurements of Student Progress showed especially high science performance for 5th graders in 2013.
Guilford County Schools
- Greensboro, N.C.
- Enrollment: 72,400
- Racial/ethnic profile: 41 percent African-American, 37 percent white, 12 percent Hispanic, 6 percent Asian, 4 percent multi-racial
- Students qualifying for free and reduced-price meals: 59 percent
Race to the Top Award: $35.2 million
Learn more about this district’s goals related to personalized learning, the challenges faced in reaching them, and positive outcomes. Read more ▼
- Personalized Learning Goals
- 100 percent of middle school classrooms will implement personalized learning environments as measured by the district’s Personalized Learning Environment Index, or PLEI, by the end of the four-year grant.
- Reduce the achievement gap by 50 percent for each subgroup compared to white students.
- Increase the number of effective and highly effective teachers and principals in middle schools.
- Provide anytime, anywhere access to learning for all students regardless of socioeconomic background.
- Increase the number of middle school students taking high-school-level courses.
- Challenges
- The tablet rollout last year had to be put on hold because of concerns about the quality and safety of the devices. Last year, the tablets were deployed all at once. This year, it’s a phased roll out that has gone much more smoothly.
- Positive Outcomes
- District officials say the way they have delivered professional development through PACE (Personalized-Achievement Curriculum Environment) was very effective. In spring 2013, each school created its own PACE team to take ownership of the initiative in their respective buildings. The teams were made up of district-level coaches, teachers, support staff, and administrators. When the leadership of a school (teachers and administrators) had more control over the decisionmaking process, it led to a smoother rollout of the initiative.
IDEA Public Schools
- Based in Weslaco, Texas
- Enrollment: 19,500
- Racial/ethnic profile: 91 percent Hispanic, 4 percent white, 2 percent African American, 1 percent Asian, 1 percent American Indian or Native Alaskan
- Students qualifying for free and reduced-price meals: 87 percent
Race to the Top Award: $31 million
Learn more about this district’s goals related to personalized learning, the challenges faced in reaching them, and positive outcomes. Read more ▼
- Personalized Learning Goals
- Close the achievement gap across grades K-12 in reading and math between the subgroups and the highest performers statewide.
- Bring 90 percent of K-5 students to or above grade level, and have 70 percent or more of 11th grade students score 21 or higher on the ACT college-entrance exam.
- Help 100 percent of graduates enter a four-year college and 85 percent of graduates attain a college degree within six years, through a summer program for high school juniors in which they stay on college campuses.
- Challenges
- District has not yet defined how to continue its personalized learning efforts once the grant period ends.
- District is confident in the programs, but is looking for data to confirm and establish a clear picture to make a case for sustainability.
- Positive Outcomes
- District officials see evidence they are delivering more targeted, individually tailored lessons to students.
- Data from last year’s Texas state assessments show that hybrid middle schools (in which 6th and 7th graders go to the iLearning Hotspot and AR Zone rather than traditional electives) outperformed traditional middle schools districtwide in both reading and math by as many as 10 percentage points in terms of number of students passing and number of students with commended performance.
Miami-Dade County Public School
- Miami, Fla.
- Enrollment: 353,000
- Racial/ethnic profile: 67 percent Hispanic, 23 percent African-American, 8 percent white, 2 percent other
- Students qualifying for free and reduced-price meals: 81 percent
Race to the Top Award: $30 million
Learn more about this district’s goals related to personalized learning, the challenges faced in reaching them, and positive outcomes. Read more ▼
- Personalized Learning Goals
- Strengthen algebra at the high school level by building a strong foundation of math at the middle school level.
- Focus on middle school mathematics so the lowest-performing students are algebra-ready by high school, and more-advanced students are ready to accelerate in high school.
- Use a blended learning model to teach math.
- Add laptops, interactive whiteboards, and furniture that encourages group collaboration and small-group work with teachers.
- Focus on professional development and add a three-week summer institute. Use math facilitators as support specialists to do job-embedded professional development at 49 schools.
- Increase the student-teacher ratio to 20-to-1 in targeted classrooms, with three adults and 60 students in a room.
- Challenges
- Changing longtime teacher practices and mindsets.
- Technology glitches, including login issues.
- Last year, they introduced a new set of standards but students were still being tested on old standards. This was difficult for teachers.
Harmony Public Schools
- A district with charter schools across the state. Grant applies to middle and high schools only.
- Based in Houston
- Enrollment: 28,500(Middle and high school enrollment is 14,600)
- Racial/ethnic profile: 48 percent Hispanic, 19 percent African-American, 18 percent white, 14 percent Asian
- Students qualifying for free and reduced-price meals: 59 percent
Race to the Top Award: $30 million
Learn more about this district’s goals related to personalized learning, the challenges faced in reaching them, and positive outcomes. Read more ▼
- Personalized Learning Goals
- Boost individual student support to master essential skills and deepen content understanding.
- Increase proficiency in math and reading on summative assessments.
- Decrease achievement gap between minority and low-income students and whites.
- Maintain a 100 percent high school graduation rate.
- Increase college matriculation rates and the number of students interested in STEM majors and career choices.
- Challenges
- Identifying the best technology tools, getting teacher and principal buy-in on every decision, communicating strategies to stakeholders effectively, and recruiting talent for some projects were among the district’s general challenges.
- It’s been more difficult for some reading teachers to adapt since the technology effect is not as strong as in math, for example.
- Positive Outcomes
- Initial results from 2013-14 show all grade levels participating in Race to the Top programs have improved their performance in both math and reading assessments.
- Harmony has outperformed state averages for both reading and math at each participating grade level in middle and high school. Almost all high schools scored 90 percent or higher proficiency in biology end-of-course assessments and 100 percent on physics end-of-course assessments, attributed to a project-based learning approach.
- There is increasing student demand for Advanced Placement science courses, and more students are choosing to study STEM-related subjects in college.
New Haven Unified School District
- Union City, Calif.
- Enrollment: 12,700
- Racial/ethnic profile: 37 percent Hispanic, 23 percent Asian, 20 percent Filipino, 8 percent African-American, 7 percent white, and 3 percent Pacific Islander
- Students qualifying for free and reduced-price meals: 46 percent
Race to the Top Award: $29.4 million
Learn more about this district’s goals related to personalized learning, the challenges faced in reaching them, and positive outcomes. Read more ▼
- Personalized Learning Goals
- Ensure that students acquire critical literacy and mathematics skills while emphasizing real world applications of those skills.
- Align instructional units with the Common Core State Standards, and provide extensive professional development in classroom practices that give students the skills to analyze texts, make key connections, build knowledge, and think and communicate about the reading and analytical process.
- Use data systems that will inform teachers and principals about how they can improve instruction and learning, and give teachers the tools and support to use these systems effectively
- Use 21st century hardware, software, and teaching methodologies to create an inquiry-based, student-centered learning environment
- Challenges
- Finding the time to implement changes. School structures are still rooted in the past, and change happens slowly.
- Overwhelming to the system, putting an additional burden on teachers to enact so much change so rapidly.
- Positive Outcomes
- Student and teacher use of technology for personalization has increased significantly from last fall to this past spring. High school teachers who never used technology in the classroom dropped from 22 to 0 percent; 40 percent of teachers reported using technology to personalize learning on a weekly basis.
- MAP test scores remained flat, but the school system considers this an accomplishment, given the burden of switching to the new common-core standards and the concern that scores would drop as a result.
- Last summer, more than 200 teachers participated in professional development, and more than 90 percent of them rated that training as effective or highly effective.
- Coaches have been helpful in making sure that the pedagogy teachers are learning is actually being implemented and in providing teachers with a highly skilled coach they can go to for support.
Metropolitan School District of Warren Township
- Indianapolis
- Enrollment: 12,100
- Racial/ethnic profile: 48 percent African-American, 32 percent white, 12 percent Hispanic, 7 percent multiracial
- Students qualifying for free and reduced-price meals: 72 percent
Race to the Top Award: $28.6 million
Learn more about this district’s goals related to personalized learning, the challenges faced in reaching them, and positive outcomes. Read more ▼
- Personalized Learning Goals
- Institute more rigorous standards and make changes to the curriculum accordingly, with a focus on English/language arts and math.
- Integrate new instructional technologies and high-tech learning environments.
- Recognize that secondary students need alternative options for earning required graduation credits.
- Build a comprehensive online curriculum that takes advantage of instructional technologies.
- Professional-development efforts involved 80 P-12 teacher representatives, administrators, department chairs, and coaches.
- School-based training took place across the school year to support teachers’ and coaches’ implementation of instructional shifts anticipated through more rigorous standards, effective mathematics practices, and close-reading strategies.
- Challenges
- Preliminary state test results show a dip in scores, which the district attributes to the transition to new standards.
- Many teachers were overwhelmed trying to juggle multiple initiatives.
- The first year, students in grades 7-12 had access to Chromebooks in school and at home. Because of the amount of damage at the middle-grade level, the program was scaled back for middle schoolers so that they only have access to the devices in school.
- Positive Outcomes
- Online testing has given the district the ability to gather performance data and act on it much more quickly than it could using paper-and-pencil assessments.
- Reports of higher student engagement in the new high-tech learning environments.
Iredell-Statesville Schools
- Statesville, N.C.
- Enrollment: 21,000
- Racial/ethnic profile: 69 percent white, 14 percent African-American, 11 percent Hispanic, 3 percent Asian, 3 percent other
- Students qualifying for free and reduced-price meals: 44 percent
Race to the Top Award: $20 million
Learn more about this district’s goals related to personalized learning, the challenges faced in reaching them, and positive outcomes. Read more ▼
- Personalized Learning Goals
- Individualize learning to improve education and teaching through personalization strategies, structures, and supports for students and educators.
- Improve student achievement and deepen learning while decreasing achievement gaps across student subgroups.
- Cultivate strong teaching practices and expand all students’ access to high-quality instruction.
- Use data to inform decisions, boost instruction, and promote continuous improvement.
- Increase the percentage of students prepared for college and careers.
- Challenges
- Rollout of state system caused district to put its plans for implementing digital portal/environment on hold.
- Positive Outcomes
- Many teachers have embraced technology; an example is educators creating iBooks, iMovies.
- District officials say they’ve moved into personalized learning in a slow and deliberate way focused on students, not technology.
Middletown School District
- Middletown, N.Y.
- Enrollment: 7,300
- Racial/ethnic profile: 51 percent Hispanic, 27 percent African-American, 20 percent white, 2 percent Asian
- Students qualifying for free and reduced-price meals: 75 percent
Race to the Top Award: $20 million
Learn more about this district’s goals related to personalized learning, the challenges faced in reaching them, and positive outcomes. Read more ▼
- Personalized Learning Goals
- Build personalized learning environments for students through the use of technology, with a focus on grades K-5.
- Make sure students are proficient in fundamental skills before moving to the next grade. (Before the Race to the Top grant, 60 percent of students moving on to the next grade were not proficient in fundamental skills.)
- Avoid having students repeat grades, but rather have special classes for students of specific ability groupings where the teacher can personalize the intervention for each child based on his or her proficiency in either math or literacy.
- Implement a two-year kindergarten intervention program for pupils who are not academically ready for kindergarten. Students spend 2.5 years (first year, summer, second year) in a personalized, tightly targeted intervention program to develop proficiency in kindergarten readiness through foundational and developmentally appropriate math and literacy skills along with traditional social skills.
- Enable high school students to take college-level courses through Syracuse University.
- Challenges
- Problems with the Apple iPad prompted the district to switch to Chromebooks.
- Positive Outcomes
- Blended learning classrooms: Students in blended learning classrooms performed better than both the Northwest Evaluation Association projected growth as well as better than their peers. Students in K-5 blended reading classrooms on average exceeded their NWEA growth expectations by 50 percent (growing 1.5 years in a single year). Students in math blended classrooms on average exceeded the NWEA expected growth by 21 percent (growing 1.2 years in a single year). Students in blended classrooms outperformed students in nonblended classrooms by 57 percent in reading and 26 percent in math.
- Paying for students to take classes for credit at Syracuse University. In the first year (2012-13) 63 students took courses; this school year, 255 are enrolled. The proportion of students getting free and reduced-price meals taking these courses has been between 40 percent and 50 percent.
Charleston County School District
- Charleston, S.C.
- Enrollment: 48,500
- Racial/ethnic profile: 45 percent white, 43 percent African-American, 8 percent Hispanic, 4 percent other
- Students qualifying for free and reduced-price meals: 53 percent
Race to the Top Award: $19.4 million
Learn more about this district’s goals related to personalized learning, the challenges faced in reaching them, and positive outcomes. Read more ▼
- Personalized Learning Goals
- Implement a competency-based system of instruction built on individualized learning plans.
- Put in place a robust system of data-driven instruction using frequent formative assessments to inform instruction.
- Build a climate and culture in which students own their learning.
- Foster student mastery of 21st-century skills necessary for college and career.
- Create a sustainable system built on a continuous improvement process.
- Challenges
- Shift to competency-based learning has required a major change in instruction and support for teachers throughout the year.
- It took time to find the right vendor to provide a digital learning platform that worked to meet district needs.
- District’s implementation of technology hit “bumps in road” in terms of the need for broadband to implement program.
- Positive Outcomes
- Students are developing their own vision as to why they’re in the classroom, and about how to go about their work, instead of simply following teachers’ direct instructions.
- Students rank themselves on behavior and on how they hope to make progress academically on specific lessons.
- Use of iPads has been embraced by students; some rules apply to their work, such as justifying why they downloaded certain apps. Teachers received devices before students to familiarize them with the product.
St. Vrain Valley Schools
- Longmont, Colo.
- Enrollment: 30,000
- Racial/ethnic profile: 65 percent white, 28 percent Hispanic, 7 percent other
- Students qualifying for free and reduced-price meals: 38 percent
Race to the Top Award: $16.6 million
Learn more about this district’s goals related to personalized learning, the challenges faced in reaching them, and positive outcomes. Read more ▼
- Personalized Learning Goals
- Integration of STEM-related courses and project-based learning into the curriculum.
- Build out the curriculum from one STEM-focused school, Skyline High School, to the curriculum for elementary and middle school.
- Creation of individual career and academic plans for students in grades 5-12.
- Hiring of teachers to help with personalized learning and mentor at-risk students for at least four hours a week.
- School counselors hired at three secondary schools to train staff and monitor students’ personalized graduation plans.
- Challenges
- Trying to integrate STEM into elementary and middle school core classes, when teachers are feeling pressure to improve test scores.
- Positive Outcomes
- English-language-learner students are tested on a national exam called ACCESS. The projected goal was about 5 percent improvement, and the actual improvement was 60 percent.
- Improvement on overall Colorado statewide assessments. Skyline hit its projected AYP performance levels for the first time; three other schools did as well.
- Increased support from community and industry partners, including improved engagement in a shared vision about innovation; partnerships within the district have increased to about 50 “major hitters” who provide resources, expertise, and mentorships.
- Increased leadership from STEM coordinators within schools in helping staff.
- Fifty percent increase in the number of students graduating from the district’s STEM academy.
Carson City School District
- Carson City, Nev.
- Enrollment: 7,500
- Racial/ethnic profile: 50 percent white, 42 percent Hispanic, 3 percent multiracial, 2 percent American Indian/Alaskan Native, 2 percent Asian, 1 percent African-American
- Students qualifying for free and reduced-price meals: 50 percent
Race to the Top Award: $10 million
Learn more about this district’s goals related to personalized learning, the challenges faced in reaching them, and positive outcomes. Read more ▼
- Personalized Learning Goals
- Hire and train key staff members, such as implementation specialists who coach teachers and facilitate the development of curriculum, assessments, and instruction.
- Redesign the curriculum and develop learning targets.
- Develop common unit and semester assessments for each course, based on the learning target system.
- Use a student mastery data system (MasteryConnect) in a formative way to improve student performance.
- Shift classroom practices from delivery-centered to learner-centered.
- Challenges
- The only timeline the district wasn’t able to meet was the curriculum development and assessment for the high schools. It was too large a task to be completed in the first year.
- Positive Outcomes
- Seeing more creative approaches, and richer, deeper discussions about how students should learn.
- Teachers appear more passionate and energized now than before the initiative.
Knowledge Is Power Program, or KIPP, DC
- A charter school system.
- District of Columbia
- Enrollment: 4,500
- Racial/ethnic profile: 99 percent African-American, less than 1 percent white, Hispanic, or Asian/Pacific Islander
- Students qualifying for free and reduced-price meals: 80 percent
Race to the Top Award: $10 million
Learn more about this district’s goals related to personalized learning, the challenges faced in reaching them, and positive outcomes. Read more ▼
- Personalized Learning Goals
- Increase the use of adaptive software aligned with the Common Core State Standards.
- Build a new learning management system designed to aggregate real-time student achievement data used for daily instructional decisions and personalized support.
- Personalized coaching and blended PD using video observation software and an LMS with individualized feedback for teachers.
- Build a framework to share and support best practices with local and national partners.
- Build out the Capital Teaching Residency, or CTR, program, a teacher-training program designed to increase the pipeline of highly effective educators in Washington, D.C. Increase sharing of best practices among teachers.
- Technology-based approaches: Use of Chromebooks and iPads in a blended learning format. In primary schools, the challenge is often centered on how to use blended learning to effectively facilitate small groups.
- Challenges
- Working with Accenture to construct a more formalized data-collection and -analysis system for measuring performance on a long-term basis.
- Positive Outcomes
- Increased the number of resident teachers who complete the teaching residency program and who are placed and retained in schools over time.
- Teachers responded positively to new professional development and personalized coaching.
- In September 2013, KIPP DC began its first-ever technology action learning project with 12 teacher leaders. Each teacher piloted a new ed-tech product in his or her classroom, or developed and documented best practices for a product he or she was already using. Results were shared in May and informed the decisions of school leaders for this school year.
Lindsay Unified School District
- Lindsay, Calif.
- Enrollment: 4,100
- Racial/ethnic profile: 90 percent Hispanic, 10 percent other
- Students qualifying for free and reduced-price meals: between75 percent and 90 percent
Race to the Top Award: $10 million
Learn more about this district’s goals related to personalized learning, the challenges faced in reaching them, and positive outcomes. Read more ▼
- Personalized Learning Goals
- Large encompassing goal is building, refining, and scaling up the district’s performance-based education system, in which students progress at their own pace.
- Build out the digital learning platform Empower.
- Build out the curriculum, assessment, and resources.
- Assure that all the efforts are aligned to the Common Core State Standards.
- Challenges
- Biggest frustration has been that some components of the Empower platform have been delayed in their development and rollout. This has caused frustration among teachers and students.
- Wanted to link success to California state tests, but that didn’t occur last year.
- Positive Outcomes
- Prior to starting its performance-based system, 20 percent of students qualified to go to a four-year college or university. Now, 32 percent qualify. The national average for high-poverty districts like Lindsay is 18 percent; national average for all districts combined is 37 percent.
- Learners are taking ownership, as opposed to the traditional “sit and get” learning mentality.
- Curriculum is more transparent, so students can just move forward upon mastering certain skills.
Galt Joint Union Elementary School District
- Galt, Calif.
- Enrollment: 3,800
- Racial/ethnic profile: 58 percent Hispanic, 35 percent white, 7 percent multiple ethnicities or declined to state
- Students qualifying for free and reduced-price meals: 63 percent
Race to the Top Award: $10 million
Learn more about this district’s goals related to personalized learning, the challenges faced in reaching them, and positive outcomes. Read more ▼
- Personalized Learning Goals
- Develop and implement personalized learning plans for every learner.
- Ensure employees and learners know and apply strengths in personalized learning environments.
- Provide learners with blended learning opportunities supporting the Common Core State Standards.
- Help learners and families participate in Bright Future Learning Centers, school libraries transformed as safe year round and expanded learning engagement hubs with Internet access.
- Ensure that project-based service learning is experienced by learners during school and/or in expanded learning settings.
- Challenges
- At the start of the 2013-14 school year, the entire district was challenged by low Internet speeds and uneven connectivity. These problems prevented teachers from effectively and efficiently using teaching resources, such as streaming video, and limited student ability to use online resources. The district now has a 1 gigabit per second connection to share with schools, and each K-12 site has its own 100 megabit per second connection. These increased broadband speeds allow collaborative learning projects among staff and students to access personalized courseware and blended learning programs more effectively.
- Positive Outcomes
- Within one school year, the district expanded wireless access and deployed mobile digital devices for increased technology access and learning opportunities for every school. The digital learning efforts support learning pathways courseware, virtual coursework, computer adaptive assessment, talent development, and project-based service learning.
- In the past 16 months, the district has purchased 2,940 Chromebooks and 214 teacher laptops. Each classroom has 10 to 15 mobile Chromebooks and Bright Future Learning Center have 80 Chromebooks. Every teacher has a laptop for flexible use during classroom instruction, live lesson production, or for mobile professional learning.
- The district designed personalized learning plans for K-8 students. The plans have educators and students blending digital learning resources with face-to-face instruction and opportunities with individual goal-setting.
Source:
Education Week | Design & Visualization: Deanna Del Ciello
Coverage of personalized learning and systems leadership in Education Week and its special reports is supported in part by the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. Education Week retains sole editorial control over the content of this coverage.