Pearson Digital White Paper - Building Success One Student at a Time:

Leveraging Technology to Meet and Exceed NCLB and AYP Requirements

By James F. Parsley, Ph.D.

A great paradox is evident in public education today. While this is perhaps the most exciting time in history to be an

educator, the challenges that accompany the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act and the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP)

requirements are daunting. In addition to being required to report data on various demographics, educators are now

challenged to compile data from a variety of sources to aid in management and instructional decision making. Assessment

results and state progress objectives must be reported by disaggregated student groups, based on poverty, race and

ethnicity, disability, and limited English proficiency. Student performance increasingly will become the preeminent

focus as teachers and school districts are mandated to close the achievement gap.1

The reality is that we live in an information-driven society, and the expectation, as evidenced by the demands of NCLB,

is that education can and must keep pace with the rest of the world. Faced with NCLB and the need to meet and report

on AYP, some educators welcome and embrace these challenges. They have a “can do” attitude because we live in

an era where technology can play a key role in turning vast amounts of raw data into usable knowledge for managing

and guiding the educational process. They understand that advances in data management technologies not only provide

the tools needed to meet today’s requirements, but that these tools also provide access to relevant information to shape

daily instructional practice and advance the potential for learning and achievement for their students. For these educators,

the ability to make data-driven decisions, routinely, in a secure, accessible, and supportive technology environment

has enabled them to focus on individual student achievement as never before thought possible.

This kind of capacity begins with powerful tools such as SASIxp™ from Pearson Digital Learning. This K-12 student

information system extends instant access to comprehensive information to the classroom allowing educators to 1) meet

stringent accountability and reporting demands, and 2) integrate an instructional management system to apply critical

1 Public Law print of PL 107-110, The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, US Department of Education: 2001

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information to daily instructional practice. The data managed by these types of systems will provide the foundation to

link together standards, curriculum, measurement, and reporting.

While educators on both sides of the achievement gap have been charged with analyzing demographics, bridging that

gap ultimately requires two key elements: information and collaboration. Full participation of administrators, educators,

students, parents and partners in the private sector is critical to seizing today’s opportunities and overcoming the many

and varied obstacles that impact student achievement. This white paper will discuss the importance of comprehensive,

usable student information management and how these systems represent the foundation upon which the next generation

of preK-12 education technologies will be built.

Putting Information to Work

In an ideal world, all educators would embrace the challenge of meeting every student’s individual needs and, in return,

they would receive the complete resources they need to achieve this mission. Our nation’s schools are being asked

to increase performance and demonstrate accountability during a time of diminished local financial resources and

mounting social concerns. Growing numbers of young people come to school burdened by issues such as poverty,

mobility, lack of English proficiency, inadequate health care, violence, homelessness, or broken families. Too often,

multiple barriers to learning are at work in students’ lives. Despite such variables, the current NCLB mandate requires

that educators close the achievement gap and ensure yearly progress for all students.

For many school districts, simply being able to monitor student progress as required by NCLB/AYP promises to be a

major challenge. The demand for accountability information is beyond the capabilities of the paper-and-pencil reporting

and traditional data analysis methodology. Similarly, with district population increasing and school management becoming

more and more complex, data management technologies have become a necessity for everything from performance

reporting to scheduling to attendance reporting.

Choosing the right technology is critical. The specification, implementation and support of this key component ultimately

will impact the ability of educators to not only keep their districts functioning smoothly, but ultimately

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1) provide the accurate reporting to ensure continued funding, and 2) share the knowledge and manage the data

necessary to make data-driven decisions and execute them with help from all members of the education community.

Proven Technologies to Meet Emerging Needs

Educational technology products and services must have the flexibility and adaptability to accommodate diverse customer

needs and new demands on the education system. Already in 16,000 schools, SASIxp offers a user-friendly interface,

instant access to timely and relevant information, and the functionality to fulfill essential reporting capabilities. Longtime

users of SASIxp recognize its value in making school management more efficient by streamlining processes such

as scheduling classes and keeping attendance records. The Pearson Digital Learning xp series software provides additional

cross-platform applications to assist teachers and administrators with a variety of technology-supported tasks, including

grading, instructional management, and school-home collaboration.

The first step toward responding to today’s management and reporting challenges is knowing what information to

capture. Once recorded, histories can be tracked, and the raw data can truly be put to work. Based on decades of

experience working directly with educators to define data requirements, SASIxp provides an information repository

for the key data points that educators need to track and respond to help each student achieve success as they move

through their K-12 career. SASIxp tracks attendance, schedules, discipline, extended test histories, grade reports, course

histories, activities eligibility and health and emergency information for each student. Based on that raw data, an easyto-

use integrated query tool then allows users to generate standard reports—or customize their own—to meet accountability

requirements and create reports for individual students, small groups, or entire school or district populations. With

this information, SASIxp helps administrators identify patterns and trends in student achievement, pinpoint strong or

weak areas, and take appropriate action to improve testing results and attendance.

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NCLB and Beyond

Empowering stakeholders with the data necessary to make informed decisions is a central premise of “No Child Left

Behind.” With the ability to fulfill a variety of NCLB reporting requirements, SASIxp helps educators identify areas of

strength and areas of needed improvement by producing the following reports:

• Individual student academic assessment report card for parents

• AYP school and district report cards

• Highly qualified teacher/staff reports

• Teacher qualifications report cards for parents

• Graduation and dropout rate report

• Title III immigrant funding report

• Safe schools reports

Accurate reports not only are essential to ensure accountability, they also help school districts maximize the funds they

receive to serve students. SASIxp is proven to provide accurate data reporting, allowing districts to receive their maximum

share of funding.

Building Success, “One Student at a Time”

As the standards-based mandate is unfolding today, few educators would express confidence that the “one size fits

all” educational system can deliver results that match the current high expectations unless capabilities of the entire

system are overhauled substantially to support the teaching-learning process. Our goal should be to change the dynamics

of learning so that the majority of a student’s motivation is self-driven by personal interest and curiosity.

To achieve the kind of success envisioned in NCLB, some educators will argue that a greater personalization of education

must occur and that, for all students to achieve competence and requisite mastery of skills, greater emphasis must be

placed on the individual learner. These educators believe that success will be built “one student at a time.” They believe

and expect that all students will learn. They envision a day when learner strengths and needs will be matched with

appropriate instruction and educational materials. They contend that continuous improvement for each learner should

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2 Western States Benchmarking Consortium, http://www.wsbenchmark.org

be demonstrated through multiple and ongoing assessments and that achievement data should be used to provide

regular feedback and reinforcement.2

Increasingly, educators are demanding access to ongoing student data sources that will drive daily instructional practices

rather than merely relying on periodic high stakes test results, which serve mostly as a post-script to the teachinglearning

process. Assessments should provide teachers with timely information on what their students know and are

able to do and whether they have achieved the appropriate learning objectives. With the aid of powerful technology

tools, assessments can help teachers personalize content or tailor instruction to match individual learning needs.

Information from assessments also can empower students to take charge of their own learning to a much greater extent.

Parents can be informed of learning progress and, ideally, their participation can be enlisted to support the child’s

educational experience. Ultimately, all of this information will translate into better education for all students through

more efficient school management and individualized learning opportunities.

The Data Foundation for Comprehensive Learning Management

Pearson Digital Learning has provided such an option for many school districts with an integrated system: SASIxp and

the company’s Concert™ Instruction & Assessment (Concert IA) offering. Concert IA enables content alignment with

state standards, including lesson plans, test items, and instructional resources; tools to monitor progress against the

standards; targeted instruction; and increased parental involvement. The robust functionality of Concert IA extends a

school district’s ability to increase Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) by validating performance and applying improvement

programs at school, subgroup and individual levels. With Concert IA and SASIxp, educators can produce the reports

necessary to benchmark performance and demonstrate growth in student learning over time. Content offerings like

SuccessMaker® Enterprise and NovaNET® online courseware, Waterford Early Reading Program™ and Waterford Early

Math & Science™, and the KnowledgeBox® digital learning system, all offered by Pearson Digital Learning, complement

SASIxp and Concert IA by assisting elementary and secondary students in the attainment of standards.

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A Hopeful View of the Future

Educational leaders should partner with technology companies that understand and share their vision of the future.

They should be positioned, strategically, to work toward that vision in incremental steps. Vendors should be committed

to forming collaborative relationships with school districts as partners in the transformation of education. To meet the

needs of all students, teachers, parents and communities, a technology company should enable the customization of

its products and services. Systems should allow maximum flexibility and adaptability to changing customer and client

demands. Technology partners should be receptive to creative, “outside the box” thinking, and they should seek out

new ideas and innovative practices. The design of products and services should be based on extensive input from

education stakeholders.

Pearson Digital Learning is focused on personalized learning, data-driven decisions, and connected learning communities.

The company is well positioned to maintain its leadership role in developing education products and providing support

services as a long-term partner committed to success for every student.

With the aid of SASIxp and Concert IA, and the commitment of Pearson Digital Learning, we can look forward to an

exciting future in which all students are able to reach their greatest potential. In the transformed education system,

young people will be empowered to assume greater responsibility for their learning. All educational endeavors and

interactions will be targeted and purposeful, and the intent will be evident to the individual learner. Continuous progress

toward goals will drive instructional decisions and support growth for students as they progress toward higher levels

of performance.

Student Information as the Foundation

Educators’ overall goal is to help their students achieve success. Student information is the foundation upon which

the future success of both educators and educational technology providers alike will depend. Educators have a growing

number of options when it comes to selecting a student information system, and it makes good sense to seek out

companies they have come to know and trust over time—those that can be more than just product providers, but serve

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as true partners with complimentary goals. Here, it is the educators’ goal to manage student information as efficiently

as possible to help them provide the best education possible to their students. Likewise, the technology provider’s

goal should be exactly the same: to help their customers provide the best education possible for their

customers’ students.

As we move into the future, we will see education happening in an anytime, anyplace environment, with learning as

the constant and time as the variable. Families will be critical partners in their children’s education. Communities will

enjoy seamless access to services, collaboration, information and educational resources that are more personalized and

responsive to the diverse needs of lifelong learners. Achievement will be valued, recognized and celebrated in every

corner of the nation. With educators and their partners working together for the benefit of our public schools, we can

realize this hopeful vision together.

About the Author, Dr. James F. Parsley

Dr. James F. Parsley currently is the lead consultant with Parsley & Associates, LLC, a consulting company with educational

and corporate clients in the United States and Canada. He served as superintendent of the Vancouver (Washington)

Public Schools for 22 years, where he led a strategic planning process that earned public support for nearly $400 million

in public and private capital funds for facility and technology investments. This decade-long work led to a complete

transformation from an aged infrastructure to a state-of-the-art learning environment and resulted in numerous honors

and national recognition for the Vancouver school system, including two site visits by the National School Boards

Association’s Institute for the Transfer of Technology of Education. Dr. Parsley has been a classroom teacher, a university

professor, a college administrator, and a school superintendent over a period of 38 years. In 2002, he received a

“Community Builder Award” from the National Coalition for Technology in Education and Training and participated

in a White House Summit on educational technology. He was designated National Superintendent in Residence for

the American Association of School Administrators, and in February 2003, he received the Distinguished Service Award

from that organization. Thomas R. Hagley, Jr., director of partnerships and public involvement for Vancouver Public

Schools, and an associate consultant with Parsley & Associates, LLC, contributed to this paper.

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About Pearson Digital Learning

Working side by side with educators for over 40 years, Pearson Digital Learning is the leader in proven, comprehensive

technologies for preK-12 education. The business’ mission is to provide innovative, research-based digital learning

solutions that elevate the art and science of teaching, and inspire children to reach their greatest potential. Reaching

more than 20 million students annually, core products include the SuccessMaker® Enterprise and NovaNET® educational

courseware, KnowledgeBox® digital learning system, Concert™ Instruction & Assessment, and the SASIxp™ student

information system. Pearson Digital Learning is also the exclusive distributor for the Waterford Early Reading Program™

and Waterford Early Math & Science™, adaptive computer-based instruction developed by the Waterford Institute.

Pearson Digital Learning is part of Pearson Education (NYSE: PSO), the world’s leading integrated education company.

Renowned Pearson Education brands include Pearson Scott Foresman, Pearson Prentice Hall, and the Family

Education Network.

More information can be found at www.PearsonDigital.com.

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Copyright © 2003 NCS Pearson, Inc. All rights reserved.

All trademarks are either owned or licensed by NCS Pearson, Inc.

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Every child will learn.