Outcomes Matter
Wisdom from the Field #10
In the book The Sweet Season, sports writer Austin Murphy chronicles one year of Division 3 college football. He moved his family next to Saint John’s University in Minnesota to follow the team for a season.
Of special focus was their unconventional head coach, John "Gags" Gagliardi. One of his unique decisions was to field his roster with as many players as he had uniforms. It was not uncommon to find over 100 players standing on the sidelines.
In addition, Gagliardi rarely used drills, prohibited tackling in practice, and kept practices to no more than 90 minutes. And yet he had the highest number of career coaching wins in football (over 400).
What student athletes were motivated by was the fact that Gagliardi fielded the best players at the moment. For example, if you were an underclassman outperforming a senior at the cornerback position during practice, the underclassman played. Naturally, committed players engaged in self-directed improvement.
Measuring Literacy Success
Education has been overwhelmed with quantitative measures: standardized tests, benchmark assessments, screeners. What these results have in common is they channel all the information during the assessment process into a single outcome that is hard to understand and lacks meaning.
The problem may be that we are selecting the wrong outcomes. What if what we measure actually matters for readers and writers?
For example, our school adapted the markers described in Rachael Gabriel’s article The Sciences of Reading Instruction (Educational Leadership) as our building goals: we want at least 80% of students to meet mastery in the following areas:
These are transfer goals - can students actually read? There is less arguing over foundational reading skills or whether the workshop approach is effective. Like the Saint John’s football players on the field: can they perform? If they can, it’s a cause for celebration. If they cannot yet, there’s success in simply knowing where we stand.
Reflective Questions
When you rely primarily on test scores and similar assessments to gauge your school’s effectiveness, what part of your students’ story is untold?
Instead of ignoring traditional assessments, what authentic measures could complement them?
How might you implement these measures, especially so they do not feel like “one more thing to do”?
Where is celebration embedded within your assessment plan?
This Wisdom from the Field series is also a feature in my upcoming book, Leading Like a C.O.A.C.H.
