English Language Arts Project Focuses on Improving Student Performance

The Office of Special Education and Early Intervention Services’ State Improvement Grant is finishing year two of a three-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs. The grant focuses on improving the performance of middle school students with disabilities in mathematics and English language arts. The following provides a synopsis of its English Language Arts AYP initiative.

Armed with the knowledge that middle school students with disabilities are experiencing difficulty with English language arts, the State Improvement Grant’s (SIG) English Language Arts Adequate Yearly Progress (ELA AYP) Project is actively pursuing answers as to why. This pursuit has led to the creation of a K-16 stakeholder discussion group. The group includes intermediate, local, and school building representatives, as well as university faculty, state reading association personnel, and Michigan Department of Education personnel.

In May 2005, these knowledgeable educators participated in an experience called “Root Cause Mapping™,” an intense dialogue process used to build consensus around factors driving the problems experienced by middle school-aged students with disabilities. Root Cause Mapping™ is a systemic design tool within the diagnostic phase of a larger process known as “Design for Results” and has become a tool to support continuous improvement efforts.

According to the Root Cause Map that emerged from the May 2005 ELA AYP event, the need for ongoing, embedded professional development and support for teachers was the primary factor needed to assist middle school students with disabilities to attain English language arts proficiency. The map subsequently served as a directional tool for organizing an ELA AYP Learning Community in August of that same year.

MI-Illuminations Offers Practical English Language Arts Tools

The primary function of the AYP Learning Community was writing the ELA AYP MI-Illuminations kit. MI-Illuminations contains practical tools to help educators address the factors identified on the Root Cause Map to help improve the student’s performance. Tips on professional development, collaboration, maintaining high standards and high expectations for all students, providing access to the general education curriculum, using data and assessment tools, incorporating technology into the English language arts, and ways to celebrate the English language arts across the curriculum are also found within the MI-Illuminations kit. All students can benefit when the ideas in MI-Illuminations are applied. Using the tools provided within the MI-Illuminations kit enables teachers to support and improve outcomes for students. Kits can be obtained by contacting: Valerie Herod Belay, Project Coordinator, (248) 770-4668, Belayv@michigan.gov.

Pictured Above [L-R]: Sharon Metoyer, Nsoroma Institute, PSA, Oak Park; Marilyn Vogel, Roseville Jr. High, Roseville Community Schools; Betty LaPointe, Delta-Schoolcraft ISD; and Eddie Parker-McAllister, Nsoroma Institute, PSA, Oak Park, celebrate learning together at the State Improvement Grant’s ELA Summer Institute, August 7-9, 2006.

Summer Institutes Help Teachers Share and Learn

Realizing that the MI-Illuminations kit is only one way to address the factors represented on the ELA AYP Root Cause Map, the SIG hosted two summer institutes to allow educators additional opportunities for dialogue and action. “Mapping the Strategies” was the title of the June 2006 institute gathering. Participants wrote practical strategies for addressing each factor previously developed through the Root Cause Map. At the August 2006 “Trainer of Trainers Summer Institute” participants became certified trainers. These trainers returned to their public schools and public school academies in Allegan, Coleman, Detroit, Escanaba, Grand Blanc, Oak Park, and Roseville where they will share this knowledge with other teachers. In April 2007, a second Trainer of Trainers Institute will be available for ELA special education and general education middle school teachers who desire to become certified trainers.

For more information about the ELA AYP Project, contact: Valerie Herod Belay, Project Coordinator, (248) 770-4668, Belayv@michigan.gov.