CCAP Holding Webinar Series on Verified Data for Academic Growth
Starting on October 6, 2023, CCAP is sponsoring a series of free webinars for charter school authorizers to provide an opportunity for providers of some of the most widely used academic progress assessments to highlight how their tools can provide “verified data” in a manner that assists the authorizer in evaluating academic growth data from the charter schools they oversee. This is the chance for authorizers as well as other stakeholders to become more familiar overall with some of the most widely used tools but also to dive into technical questions they may have.
Background
California has a charter school renewal process that includes the consideration of “verified data” for measuring the academic growth of schools in low or middle performance categories.
As stated by the California Department of Education:
1. What is the purpose of verified data?
As required by California Education Code Section 47607.2 , verified data is used in the charter school renewal process for schools in the low and middle performance categories. These charter schools must use verified data to show measurable increases in academic achievement or strong postsecondary outcomes. Increases in academic achievement are defined as showing one-year’s progress for each year in school. Strong postsecondary outcomes are defined as achieving rates of college enrollment, persistence, and completion that are equal to those of their peers.
High Quality Use of Verified Data in the Charter School Renewal Process
The providers of verified data assessments have sophisticated systems to collect, analyze, and report data at the student, school, system/district, state, and national levels. They also are able to do sophisticated analysis that factors in a wide array of student characteristics. The analysis capacities of these systems are very powerful. However, the power and complexity of these tools also challenge the use of these tools by charter schools, school districts, and county offices of education that lack the resources to have employees with the expertise to utilize the systems effectively.
Charter schools and the districts and county offices of education that authorize charter schools, especially smaller authorizers and stand-alone charter schools, are seeking guidance in the appropriate use of these data sources to support appropriate, valid, and reliable measurement of student academic outcomes consistent with the requirements of law.
The webinars specifically will provide:
- An overview of the system and tools the providers offer.
- An explanation of how these tools support the evaluation of student academic performance (and related measures addressed in the law); and
- Recommendations of one or more specific approaches/templates to the evaluation of student academic performance that:a. Can be implemented by an authorizer (and the charter schools they oversee) using the provider’s system;
b. Are appropriate, valid, and reliable;
c. Are useable by district and county office staff that do not have dedicated assessment data experts (e.g., using existing tools and reports); and
d. Provide data that is meaningful, understandable, and actionable by charter schools, district and county office authorizers, and each of their respective governing boards.
Schedule and registration
The first webinar was held on Friday, October 6, 2023, and featured a representative of NWEA about the MAP Growth assessment. The recording can be viewed here.
The second webinar was held on Friday, January 12, 2024, and featured representatives of the CORE Districts. The recording can be viewed here.
As future webinars are scheduled, details and registration will be available on CCAP's Calendar of Events.