C HAIRPERSON G OVERNOR S TATE OF H AWAII S TATE P UBLIC C HARTER S - PDF document

J OHN S. S. K IM D AVID Y. I GE C HAIRPERSON G OVERNOR S TATE OF H AWAII S TATE P UBLIC C HARTER S CHOOL C OMMISSION ( ʻA HA K ULA H O ʻ ĀMANA ) 1111 Bishop Street, Suite 516, Honolulu, Hawaii 96813 Tel: 808-586-3775 Fax: 808-586-3776 PRESENTATION SUBMITTAL DATE OF SUBMITTAL: August 8, 2018 DATE OF MEETING: August 9, 2018 TO: John Kim, Chairperson State Public Charter School Commission FROM: Sione Thompson, Executive Director State Public Charter School Commission AGENDA ITEM: V. Presentation on Value Added Measures Pilot and Guidance Materials I. DESCRIPTION Presentation on the State Public Charter School Commission’s (Commission’s) pilot of its recently developed Value Added Measure guidance materials. II. AUTHORITY Pursuant to Hawaii Revised Statutes (“HRS”) §302D-16, “The performance provisions within the charter contract shall be based on a performance framework that clearly sets forth the academic, financial, organizational, and operational performance indicators, measures, and metrics that will guide the authorizer's evaluations of each public charter school.” Section 5.1 of the State Public School Charter Contract (Charter Contract) provides that “[t]he School's academic, organizational, and financial performance under this Charter Contract shall be evaluated using the Academic, Organizational, and Financial Performance Frameworks, respectively, attached as Exhibit B to this Charter Contract. The specific terms, forms, and requirements of the Performance Frameworks, including any required indicators, measures, metrics, and targets, are maintained and disseminated by the Commission and shall be binding 1

on the School. Material changes to the Performance Frameworks shall require approval by the Commission.” III. BACKGROUND The Academic Performance Framework As described in the current Charter Contract, the Commission’s Academic Performance Framework (APF) contains two sections: 1. Student Academic Outcomes 2. Value Added The first section consists of a variety of measures that focus on student outcomes — both those that are required by Hawaii Revised Statutes and drawn from the Hawaii Department of Education’s Strive HI Performance System (Strive HI) and other optional measures of a school’s choosing — and corresponding performance targets for each year of the contract, which are developed by charter schools in consultation with Commission staff. The required measures include student academic proficiency and growth, achievement gaps in proficiency between high needs and non-high needs students, and various college and career readiness measures. The second section contains Value Added Measures (VAMs), whose goal is to capture the work that a charter school is doing to impact student academic performance through mission-aligned initiatives. They are used to assess a school’s effectiveness in fulfilling its mission and achieving the desired results of its educational program, and they focus on the unique aspects of a school’s model that may not be captured by the Student Academic Outcomes portion of the APF or Strive HI. History of Value Added Measures Last month, VAMs celebrated their first birthday. They were introduced in the current version of the APF and went into effect in July 2017 as a part of the Charter Contracts that the Commission executed with nearly all of its portfolio that summer. Although VAMs are a new feature, the APF has included school-selected, mission-aligned measures since it was first implemented in school year 2013-2014. The earlier iteration of VAMs were called “School-Specific Measures,” or “SSMs,” and were very similar to VAMs. The primary difference between the two is that SSMs were an optional component of the APF and only appeared in the APFs of two charter schools; VAMs, on the other hand, are a required component of the APF and, therefore, appear in the APFs of all charter schools. Guidance on Value Added Measures During Summer 2017, Commission staff met with charter school leaders to introduce the concept of VAMs and to engage in “guided discussions” regarding potential topics; however, no 2

formal guidance was provided to schools regarding the Commission’s expectations for VAM content, proposals, or reporting, save the brief description of VAMs that appears in the Charter Contract: “The second section of the Academic Performance Framework captures the work that schools are doing to add value to their school community or the education system at large. Each school must create a minimum of one Value Added goal. This section can measure the implementation of systems designed to increase program effectiveness, innovative practices and those that are aligned to the school’s mission and vision. These goals will be specifically articulated and measurable and will include implementation timelines.” 1 In an effort to fill this gap and to augment the information presented in the Charter Contract about VAMs, as well as to respond to prior feedback from charter schools regarding the challenges that they experienced due to a lack of clarity around the Commission’s expectations for School-Specific Measures, Commission staff engaged with external consultants in Spring and Summer 2018 to develop guidance materials for schools about VAMs, specifically: 1. Value Added Measure General Guidance 2. Value Added Measure Proposal Template 3. Instructions for Value Added Measure Proposal Template Drafts of these documents are included with this submittal as Exhibits 1 through 3 . IV. INFORMATION FOR CONSIDERATION About the Pilot Because the goal of these guidance materials is to provide charter schools with support structures for the development of VAMs and a clearer understanding of the Commission’s expectations regarding VAM content, proposals, and reporting, the only way to truly assess their efficacy is to ask charter schools to try out the materials and to share their feedback. Thus, a small group of charter schools has been invited to pilot test the guidance materials this school year. This pilot is designed to serve multiple purposes: • To assess the efficacy of the newly developed VAM guidance materials and whether they meet the needs of charter schools. • To provide the Commission with feedback that will inform the refinement and improvement of the VAM guidance materials and support structures, specifically: 1 See Exhibit B: Performance Frameworks (Academic, Financial, and Organizational) of the State Public Charter School Contract. 3

 VAM proposal and contract amendment review and approval process  VAM implementation process  VAM reporting to the Commission  Rollout of VAM support structures to all Hawaii charter schools • To act in accordance with the Strategic Authorizing Vision articulated in the Commission’s Strategic Plan, in particular to “Actualize a Learning Organization and System” by acquiring new knowledge (through the pilot) and then making adjustments to practices and processes to reflect what has been learned. Eleven charter schools have been invited to participate in the pilot. These schools were selected because they all have one-year VAMs that end this summer, which means that they must develop new VAMs for school year 2018-2019 and beyond and request the Commission’s approval to add these new measures to their Charter Contracts. Timeline and Next Steps August & September 2018: Charter schools develop VAM proposals. October 2018: Commission staff and charter schools present VAM proposals and contract amendment requests to the Commission’s Performance & Accountability Committee and the full Commission for review and decision-making. Throughout school year 2018-2019: • Charter schools collect VAM data. • Commission staff gathers feedback about the VAM guidance materials and support structures. June 2019: • Charter schools submit school year 2018-2019 VAM data and reports to the Commission. • Commission staff revise the VAM guidance materials and support structures per the feedback gathered during the pilot. For the purposes of the pilot, the draft document “Value Added Measure General Guidance” ( Exhibit 1 ) will serve as an agreement between the Commission and schools regarding what is a high-quality VAM proposal. Charter schools will use this document to guide the development of their proposals and the Commission will use it as touchstone for their review of the proposals. 4

Exhibit 1 Draft VAM General Guidance 5