Rodel Foundation Delaware : Areas of Focus

High expectations and sound data must drive all decisions about teaching and learning.

	African American and Latino high school students are 36% less likely to be enrolled in a full college preparatory track than white students. Source: Closing the Achievement Gap Takes Leadership: Lessons from Schools and Districts on the Performance Frontier, Kati Haycock, 2008.

Clear, high standards let everyone in the state– from students and teachers to parents, policymakers and the public– know exactly what students are expected to master to be prepared for learning and work in the 21st century. Rigorous assessments measure whether students meet the higher standards, providing the data educators need to make adjustments when students fall short. And information about school performance makes it possible to hold people and organizations at all levels accountable for results. Delaware has led the nation in establishing high standards for its students. Challenging expectations inspire the best in every educator, parent, and student. The world is changing rapidly and we are committed to providing every Delaware student with an education that can compete with the world’s best.

How Rodel supports high academic standards

Student Assessment

Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) Growth Pilot – Rodel, along with the Delaware Department of Education and partner school districts, supported the Delaware Growth Model Assessment Pilot. The pilot, now operating in almost 40% of Delaware Public Schools, is a computer-adaptive formative assessment that allows teachers, students, and parents to identify and address student needs in real time, arming teachers with better data so that they can provide individualized instructional strategies to students. Strong evaluations of this pilot were the basis of the Delaware legislature’s creation of an assessment task force to ensure that lessons from the pilot are incorporated in the next state assessment system.
Assessment Task Force – Paul Herdman, President of the Rodel Foundation, serves as a member of the Assessment Task force responsible for putting together the RFP for the next generation of Delaware’s state assessment system.

Best Practices

Superstars and Models of Excellence – Rodel supports the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce Superstars in Education and the Liutenant Governor's Models of Excellence in Education programs by serving on the selection committees for both programs and providing grant funding to winning schools.
Foundation for Math and Science – Rodel co-invested with the Foundation for Science and Math Education to pilot the International Math Curriculum, also known as Singapore Math, in Delaware Schools. Three schools— Kuumba Academy, the Academy of Dover, and Baltz Elementary—are participating in the pilot, involving approximately 60 teachers and 1,000 students.

Accountability

Performance Dashboard – Paul Herdman serves as a member of the LEAD Committee, which has been charged with creating a dashboard on the academic progress of each district and school. As a result of the LEAD Committee’s work, the Department of Education unveiled its new school profiles/dashboard in August 2008.

Related Resources

How Do Performance Level 1 and 2 Students in Delaware Perform Over time? Delaware Education Research & Development Center, 2006.

Delaware Student Testing Program Performance Level 1 Study Preliminary Findings, Delaware Education Research & Development Center, 2006.

"Closing the Achievement Gap Takes Leadership," Kati Haycock, 2008.

"Seeing the U.S. School Systems through the Prism of International Benchmarks" Andreas Schleicher, 2008.

A More Accurate Growth Model: Using Multigrade Adaptive Assessments to Measure Student Growth, Steering Committee of the Delaware Statewide Academic Growth Assessment Pilot, 2007.