Hitting the target:
'Informed instruction' helps raise achievement, meet mandates
By Marcy Levin-Epstein, eSchool News Online

Delivering individualized instruction targeted to meet each student's needs once was no more than the stuff of educators' dreams. Today, thanks to a growing number of offerings and some creative financing on the part of school districts, this model is becoming a reality for teachers and students nationwide.

Rapid technological developments, coupled with regulatory and legal burdens imposed by state standards, high-stakes testing, and the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law, have combined to create a climate in which so-called "informed instruction" is flourishing.

Small wonder. Today's software solutions have the capability to provide curriculum tailored to every student's strengths and weaknesses, allow teachers to monitor student performance in real time, administer assessments and adjust instruction in line with the results, interface with gradebooks, send reports to parents--and more.

These solutions have "the potential to transform education," said Melissa Watkins, chief operating officer of Curriculum Advantage, provider of the Classworks instructional system. "That's the goal of any truly individualized education. It gives every child a chance to be successful."

With the Classworks system, educators import state assessment results and build a curriculum based on each student's unique needs, according to Watkins. For example, a Florida teacher can log into the system, grab test scores from Florida's state test (the FCAT), and the system builds a learning path for each child.

"The students log on, and everybody's working on something different," Watkins said. "As a teacher, instead of doing direct instruction that is maybe hitting 10 of my 30 kids, I can walk around and really work with each kid on what they need. I can look at the system, spot check, tell the number of attempts a child made to answer a question, and [see] what their answers are."

Title I students can be doing one activity, kids needing remediation can be working three grades below grade level, and gifted and talented students can be working three grades ahead, she said.

Raising standards

Watkins and her peers at other instructional and assessment software firms agree that NCLB and the state standards movement clearly are fueling the growth in these types of systems.

"The products we have with instruction and assessment allow teachers to stay focused on making sure students learn, but management systems can track for you how you're doing in terms of standards and end-of-year assessments, because that's what teachers are being asked for," said Marissa Larson, senior product manager for assessment at PLATO Learning.

Likewise, Brad Baird of Excelsior Systems said the assessment component--which is his firm's forte--is necessary in today's climate of accountability.

"NCLB has raised the awareness of achievement versus standards and has brought the standards-based system to the fore. We're the logical extension of that," said Baird, who is vice president of sales and marketing at Excelsior.

Once educators discover that high-stakes testing and state standards are "means to an end in terms of increased achievement," many decide they like the testing after all, Baird said. But even more useful than taking a single, end-of-year snapshot of student achievement is the practice of continually assessing students throughout the school year, he said--a practice made easier by the latest generation of software.

"If we can collect an entire photo album, we not only can improve test scores, but we can raise achievement as well," Baird said.

An agreement inked earlier this year between Curriculum Advantage and Excelsior will give teachers using the Classworks system this capacity for continual assessment. Now, Excelsior's Pinnacle Plus Assessment Management System can be bundled with Classworks to bring together the instruction, accountability, and assessment pieces in a single solution.

With this combination, Baird said, "assignments are graded instantly, the teacher knows right now who gets it and who doesn't, and--while it's fresh in their minds--teachers can go back and deliver remediation."

The agreement gives teachers using Classworks a two-pronged approach to targeting instruction. The capacity for continual assessment joins the ability to import state high-stakes test results that already was a part of the software, giving educators a powerful range of information to help them determine--and meet--students' needs.

The Classworks system contains 3,000 hours of instruction, with 8,600 unique activities and 180 different software titles from which to pull. Currently in about 2,000 schools, the program covers kindergarten through the objectives of high-school exit exams, according to Watkins.

Ideally, when children are on the system 45 minutes a week per subject, multiple years of growth will be seen, she said. In one Georgia district, 78 percent of summer-school students passed their courses after using the system. In Brevard County, Fla., where the program was introduced for special-needs students, reading levels rose 5.6 percent last year, according to Eva Lewis, director for exceptional students education programs for the Brevard School District (see story, page 32).

The program produces 21 different teacher reports, with one of the most meaningful being the one that aligns student results with state standards. "This is a very, very, clean way to show administrators and parents what kids are doing and how they align to standards," Watkins said.

Classworks currently has state editions aligned with state standards in 15 states and can import high-stakes test data to create individual student learning paths in six states: Florida, Georgia, Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas.

For its part, Excelsior--which wrote the first electronic gradebook in 1987--supplies gradebook, assessment, and reporting options used by more than 100,000 teachers, according to Baird.

Teachers can view assessments and make immediate determinations on student skills and what kind of remediation or enrichment they need, he said, so "instead of finding out two months after the high-stakes test where they are in terms of mastery of standards, [teachers] can know at any time and be proactive instead of reactive in their instruction."

Excelsior's Pinnacle system directly connects to more than 100 student databases, bringing in data such as rosters and demographics and pushing the data back out. Administrators and counselors have real-time access to the data, as do parents and students via the web or the phone. The system can generate hundreds of reports, including everything from attendance to grades to discipline and standards-based report cards, according to Baird.

Excelsior data show that 88 percent of Miami-Dade County teachers who have used the product for more than a year say it saves them a half-hour to an hour a day in administrative paperwork. "So you're giving teachers back an hour in classroom time that will translate into increased instruction and increased achievement," Baird said. A Texas district, meanwhile, has found that giving students access to their own information on a daily basis helped improve their achievement by a full letter grade, he said.

Excelsior systems are installed in more than 850 school districts in about 42 states, he said, with installations ranging from huge districts such as Miami-Dade County to small, single-school districts.

Integrated approaches

Integrated approaches, combining computer-delivered assessment with computer-delivered instruction, are offered by at least two other firms: Pearson Digital Learning and PLATO Learning.

At Pearson, the curriculum piece is provided via the company's SuccessMaker software, while the assessment and management piece comes through the two-year-old Concert suite of products.

"What we wanted to do, and what we have done, is build a suite of tools that supports districts in an effort to design what they want to teach, [control] how they learn, and demonstrate what they learn," said Concert team member Tim Hughes. The system begins with state standards and then customizes to a district's needs and values, he added.

"Once you've delivered the instruction, the important thing is the ability to continually monitor what kids have learned and haven't learned," Hughes said.

The Concert system currently is used in about 40 districts in a half-dozen states, serving several hundred thousand students, according to Brett Jenkins, director of product management in Pearson's Instruction Management & Assessment division.

Concert allows school leaders to track students over time and design instruction accordingly, Jenkins said. Administrators can look at an entire population or any subgroup, and they can look at how a given teacher is performing compared with the teacher next door, he said.

As soon as students take a test, scores show up on the teacher's online gradebook, Jenkins explained: "Testing is connected to instructional applications, connected to the classroom management piece. ... The teacher spends time teaching, not doing data entry."

Teachers begin by logging onto their home page, where they can find all kinds of data on their students and their district's standards. The teachers can keep track of grades, take attendance, do planning, and make observations about how kids are doing vis-à-vis the standards, with reports generated on all of the above.

In addition to student tracking and classroom management, the system is designed to open lines of communication with parents, Jenkins said. Parents can log in and see their child's progress, homework assignments, and other information. Teachers can "publish" notices to all parents with, for example, notice of an assignment, or they can post private notices giving parents their own children's test scores.

The Concert system sells on an annual subscription basis at $18 per student per year, with a sliding scale that drops quickly with volume, according to Jenkins. The assessment component is sold separately at a list price of $8.50 per student, he said.

SuccessMaker, the instructional side of the Pearson system, is a comprehensive K-8 reading and math program that is research-based and has roots going back 35 years, according to Kirsten Butzow, director of product management for curriculum products at Pearson.

The program provides each student with targeted instruction through assessment capabilities that determine where the student is performing and delivers content based on those needs, Butzow said. In addition, SuccessMaker--which is currently aligned with standards in 27 states--allows educators to forecast and manage a student's achievement on high-stakes tests, she said.

In essence, the program is a curriculum and individualized instruction tool, a management system that provides teachers with real-time data, and an embedded assessment tool that allows different interventions to be introduced as needed, according to Christina Everard, New Jersey account executive for SuccessMaker.

According to Butzow, the software is used in more than 15,000 schools in the United States and another 1,500 schools abroad. In addition to reading and math, the program includes social studies and science, writing, and ESL applications.

Student time spent on the program varies with objectives, but Pearson recommends at least 15 minutes three times a week each for reading and math. "The key is consistency," said Everard.

In a world of budget constraints and large classrooms, the program offers a way to complement teacher instruction without teachers being at the front of the class, Butzow said. She was careful to stress, however, that no one is advocating "replacing the most important thing in the classroom, being the teacher. This just gives the teacher the tools."

Still, the results have been nothing short of "phenomenal," Butzow said. Many districts have had failing schools raised to high-achieving levels with this system, she said.

Elementary schools in Muscatine, Iowa, for example, have exceeded school board goals for both reading and math, achieving an 87.2 percent reading average and an 86.8 percent math average, according to Pearson. The board had set 2003-04 goals of 81.9 percent for reading and 82.85 percent for math.

Muscatine implemented SuccessMaker for its 2,374 K-5 students in fall 2001. Students use the "Success Lab" for 30 minutes--split evenly between reading and math--each day.

In the Perry Public Schools in Perry, Ohio, where SuccessMaker has been in place for four years in K-4 reading and math programs, students can work "at their top challenge level" under individualized instruction that allows them to move through their objectives at the appropriate pace for them, said Cheryl Ward, director of learning communities for the school system.

The district also is in its second year of piloting Concert to help meet district goals for both student achievement and parent communication, Ward said. Connecting with parents is especially important, she said, in these days of standards-based learning.

"Parents need to understand that grades only show a part of the student achievement picture," Ward said. "Parents who understand the objectives in a curriculum and can access information about student mastery are armed with the type of information that can help them impact student learning. When students know that parents are interested and involved in their studies, their achievement improves."

The SuccessMaker program is sold on a license basis, with each license generally supporting around 30 students, according to Butzow.

Circle of learning

At PLATO Learning, the model is a circular one of instruction and assessment, said Marissa Larson, senior product manager for assessment. Teachers can start with coursework or start with assessment and go from there, she said.

"If you know there's a certain area of need, for example algebra or grade 7-8 math concepts, you can use coursework where you want to receive instruction. Once you start that path, you have mastery module tests that have been broken down into course sections, and you get little tests to show understanding of the material," Larson said.

The assessment piece was added with PLATO's acquisition last November of Lightspan and its eduTest assessment platform. Some 2,500 schools in 450 districts use eduTest, which provides diagnostic assessments. That is just one piece of the PLATO puzzle, however, as the company provides a full range of accountability, assessment, and instructional software.

On the curriculum side, K-3 products focus on basic reading and phonetics, while K-12 products cover language arts, reading, math, science, and social studies through advanced high school courses. The assessment side currently stops around 10th grade, although PLATO plans to expand that, Larson said.

The PLATO Learning index is searchable by some 28,000 objectives that correlate to instructional content and standards, she said.

Schools use the program for both "recovery" and "mainstream" applications, according to Larson. The recovery model aims instructional content at students who have failed a grade or a high-stakes test or who are not proficient on standards. In the mainstream model, objectives in which students must be proficient are covered, based on where students fall along those objectives.

From a classroom management perspective, the system allows teachers to check on students as they go down the learning path and supply different instruction to each, based on their needs, Larson said: "How feasible is it for you to work with all of them one at a time? That's pretty challenging. This is a way to do that."

The assessment side, meanwhile, allows administrators to get same-day reports and make adjustments. "You have the ability now very quickly to find out how everybody in the district is doing on fractions, for example," Larson said. "You can compare schools to see how different schools are performing relative to each other."

She added: "It's not just a 'big-brother' mentality. ... It's a way for [administrators] to start seeing who's doing this really well. I want to see how that teacher's classroom went from 10 percent to 60 percent in that short of a time. Can we do best-practice sharing? Can we take what that teacher has done and replicate it? That's really the purpose of the reporting."

In addition, the system allows educators to look at the entire student population within a school, "outside the confines of the classroom you're in. You can pull out kids from different classrooms to regroup them before state tests, for example."

The Irvine, Calif., Unified School District, now entering its second year with the eduTest system, is using the system to assess results and effect change, according to Mark Sontag, curriculum coordinator for math and science: "If we see a weakness across the district, is it a weakness in materials we provide to teachers? For example, in fifth-grade science, kids are supposed to learn about the periodic table. ... That was an area that we found was weak in these assessments, so we're looking at it now."

The district is putting the system to another use by piloting a three-school math intervention program of small-group instruction for students who are found to have the same deficiency. In addition, Irvine is using the assessment data to help identify students who would benefit from summer school.

Teachers also use the results to find out what students know and don't know, so instruction time can be allocated accordingly. "If they already know it, move on. That's a way to take instruction and narrow it for kids who need it," Sontag said.

There are other benefits as well: Educators can find the instructional practices that work and replicate them districtwide, and teachers can use the results for "self-reflection" about what is working or not working in their classrooms.

Irvine began last year with the 5,700 students in grades 4-6 and tested students at the end of each trimester in math, reading, writing conventions, and science. Irvine also brought the system into its alternative-education high school.

This school year, the district plans to add grade seven to the assessments and to add social studies to the testing in grades six and seven, Sontag said. Next year, Irvine plans to extend the program into eighth grade, he said.

In North Carolina, the Carteret County Schools adopted the PLATO system as a pilot project two years ago to prepare students for the state's End of Grade (EOG) tests, which are given in math and reading to students in grades 3-8.

The system was purchased with two purposes in mind: to benchmark students and to allow teachers to create their own tests to help move students along, according to Carteret assistant superintendent Pennylloyd Baldridge.

"It puts power in teachers' hands," Baldridge said. "I think it's transforming how we feel about assessments. We see them less as a documentation of what we did and more of an ongoing assessment of where we can actually make a difference. ... We're getting so we don't look at them so much as big assessments carved in stone. Instead, we're actually using them as real assessments ought to be used, to teach."

In short, "It's the biopsy versus the autopsy method," said Joe Poletti, director of instructional technology for the 8,100-student district.

Use of the system has varied by school and by teacher, Poletti said. Overall, more than 40,000 assessments were run last year in grades 2-8, but while some schools did 6,000 to 7,000 assessments, others didn't do many at all, he said.

Parents are happy with the system, as are high-use teachers, Baldridge said. Principals like it, too, Poletti added, but "one area we catch criticism in is from the people who want to do the technology-rich projects," rather than use computers for assessments.

The Carteret schools also have used the SuccessMaker instructional model for the past seven or eight years, Poletti said.

While it is hard to pinpoint improvements on any one system, Poletti and Baldridge say the computer systems clearly have played a role. Whereas last year eight or nine Carteret schools met the Adequate Yearly Progress standard under NCLB, this year 14 of the district's 16 schools did.

"You can't say that it was this technology or any one thing, but I believe it was all of that together," Poletti said. "When teachers and school systems are being asked to do more and more and no one is giving you more time, you have to work smarter, and this does that."

Intervention approach

A somewhat different approach is offered by HOSTS Learning, which makes a system used most commonly for intervention in reading and math. In this system, the computer is used for assessment only, and the remediation is delivered via human contact.

Typically a school sets up an intervention center, and teachers refer students who are at the lowest instructional levels. The software is used to assess the students and generate a "prescription for instruction," according to Michael Williamson, chief academic officer.

Interestingly, this model employs volunteers who work with students either one-on-one or in a small group setting to bring them up to grade level. The program uses the "power of technology to magnify the effect of volunteer assistance," Williamson said. On average, he said, students spending seven to nine months a year in the intervention program gain 1.8 years of academic growth.

In the classroom version of the HOSTS system, teachers can do immediate or deferred assessments, and the results are translated into a computer-generated prescription based on the materials at the teacher's disposal. "One of the things we know is that teachers are most comfortable and most efficient using the materials they have on hand and are familiar with and use on a day-to-day basis," said Williamson.

HOSTS systems are used in 1,200 to 1,300 schools in 700 to 800 districts, serving about 60,000 students total, Williamson said. In the 40 states covered, the program is aligned with state standards, he said. How to fund the latest instructional systems

Anytime a school district has to come up with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, finding the cash is no easy trick. Yet computer specialists say there is no shortage of funding sources--in this era of accountability--for software systems designed to raise student achievement.

The federal government is, of course, the largest single source of specialized funding. With the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), "the federal government is being very flexible about how [districts] spend their money," said Cathy Sump, director of product marketing for Curriculum Advantage. "Be creative in using the money you get already," she advises. Districts "have a lot of flexibility as long as they can show results."

Curriculum Advantage, in a funding flyer to its clients, outlines these potential sources of federal funding for instructional software:

Title I, Part A: Funded at $12.3 billion in fiscal 2004, Title I supports districts and schools with large percentages of low-income students to help close the achievement gap between wealthy and poor children.

Reading First: This program, a major initiative of the Bush administration, aims to make sure each child reads at or above grade level by the end of third grade. Fiscal 2004 funding is $1.1 billion.

Title II, Part D: Enhancing Education Through Technology: This state-administered grant program aims to raise student achievement through technology use and also to help each student become technologically literate by the end of eighth grade. Fiscal 2004 funding is $691.8 million.

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA): With $10 billion in fiscal 2004, IDEA funds programs to guarantee access to an equal education for children with disabilities.

21st Century Community Learning Centers: This $999 million program is designed to allow enrichment opportunities--often delivered through before- and after-school programming--for children at low-performing schools.

All in all, Sump said, about 60 percent of Curriculum Advantage clients use federal funding for their software purchases.

In an innovative twist, one Florida district actually used Medicaid reimbursement dollars to pay for its first year of implementation. The Brevard County Schools have received millions in Medicaid, Title I, and IDEA funding to support their software implementation, according to Eva Lewis, director for exceptional students education programs.

State funding

The next big source of funding for targeted instruction and assessment systems is state funding. Spurred on by NCLB, many states are mandating strict retention policies for students who do not achieve goals, Sump said, and already two states have backed those mandates with money.

In Texas, the second cycle of grants has just been released under the High School Success and Completion Program, and the money can be used for software and other technology. Some $20 million is available for about 100 projects, according to Sump. Grant requests are being accepted for $15,000 to $600,000 per district.

In Pennsylvania, the $175 million Educational Block Grant is distributed to schools based on enrollment and performance, and technology and software are "high on the list" of eligible activities, particularly as they help with NCLB mandates, Sump said.

Sump believes these state funding sources to be the tip of the iceberg. "I very much think" states eventually will put their money where their mouths are, and "I think they have to," she said.

State and district textbook funds also can be used for instructional software purchases, Sump said: "Once we can become part of the curriculum, there's large amounts of money set aside for that. A program like this is so much more cost-effective than buying $80 textbooks for 500 or 1,000 kids."

Corporate and private foundation funding, while available for a wide array of education projects, have not been used much for these types of software purchases, according to Sump. Those funds do not tend to support general technology funding, but rather are tied to specific donations of hardware and software, she said.

Creative sources

"We're not seeing any problems with districts getting funding," said Pearson Digital Learning's Tim Hughes. "We're continually amazed at the creativity districts are showing" in tracking down money for these systems.

Likewise, Pearson's Kirsten Butzow said she's seen districts run the gamut to find funding, with one school even hosting bake sales and other fundraisers to get the money.

In California, even in the midst of a statewide budget crisis, districts do have one advantage: They can use a share of California state lottery proceeds set aside for an "instructional materials" account under the voter-passed Proposition 20.

That's what the Irvine schools did, where their PLATO system ran them $175,000 the first year and will cost another $156,000 this school year, according to Mark Sontag, curriculum coordinator for math and science for the district. "The nice thing about the lottery money is that it's a continually replenished pot of money," said Sontag.

Curriculum Advantage, like other technology firms, helps clients find funding sources for their purchases. The firm will provide grant writers or consulting, depending on the grant-writing expertise of the school district's personnel, Sump said. Basically, she said, "when we see an opportunity, we go after it."

"Our point of view is that real learning takes place most effectively through human interaction," he said. "Therefore it's been our endeavor to use technology to empower humans to be more effective, ... to be more accurate in assessments and prescriptions."

Each implementation begins with an inventory and audit. For the intervention mode, three days of training are required, and for classroom systems, one day of training. Ongoing support--including access to a help line and consultants--is provided, as are management systems for recruiting and managing volunteers.

The 25-year-old system is sold through an annual license, and the intervention model accounts for about 85 percent of HOSTS installations, according to Williamson.

"Particularly in terms of NCLB and the pressure to close the achievement gap," he said, "our intervention program really provides schools with the ability to rapidly accelerate the achievement of targeted groups of children."

Regardless of the technology, teachers still must teach and students have to study-- but with today's "informed instruction," it's a whole lot easier–and more effective–to do both.

For more information on the software firms covered in this special report:

Curriculum Advantage
(888) 841-4790

Excelsior Software
(800) 473-4572

Pearson Digital Learning
(888) 977-7900

PLATO Learning
(800) 44-PLATO

HOSTS Learning
(800) 833-4678

Marcy-Levin-Epstein is a freelance writer living in Maryland who writes frequently about education.