The data sample included 111 students, grades 1 - 8, with fall and spring benchmark scores using grade-level reading passages.
What makes this data particularly impressive is that every student eligible for enrollment at Pace School is among the top 1 to 5 percent most challenging to educate in his or her school district.
At Pace School, the goals for students are lofty:
- Close achievement gaps in reading, math and writing
- Reduce psychiatric symptoms
- Return to public school
Progress Monitoring
Pace School tracks progress for all students in kindergarten through ninth grade, unlike most other schools. Teachers at Pace School routinely evaluate the effectiveness of instruction using a process called "Curriculum Based Measurement."
Shifting from "Did Your Child Learn?" to "Is Your Child Learning?"
Rather than evaluating student performance at the end of the school year, curriculum-based measurement enables teachers to modify instructional interventions during instruction, while there is still time for students to benefit.
State-of-the-art technology enables weekly progress monitoring in reading and monthly monitoring in math and writing.
"Benchmarking" against grade-level material is conducted three times per year to evaluate how students compare to those in a regular classroom.
To evaluate reading, Pace uses guidelines promoted by the National Reading Panel and uses early literacy measurements for students in kindergarten and first grade.
Special needs students, as a subgroup in Pennsylvania, score lowest on the Pennsylvania System of State Assessment (PSSA). One hundred percent (100%) of students at Pace School are in this subgroup. Progress monitoring data for reading in spring 2005 showed the following impressive results for Pace School students seen in the Reading Fluency chart on this page.
What it means to you:
This data shows the effect of our blended education and mental health programs. Given the challenges faced by every student, the data strongly suggest that students are learning.
Behavioral Data
Behavioral data is another way to evaluate student performance. An important question parents and school districts ask is, "Does Pace School's model of integrated education and mental health services support student success?"
One indicator to measure "success" is critical incidents. In any education setting, these are behaviors unusual to the setting, for example, physical aggression, verbal aggression and property destruction. As shown in the figure to the right, the layers of positive behavioral support for students at Pace School indicate the following results:
- 71 percent of students respond favorably to standard features that include integrated education/mental health classroom staffing, individualized curriculum and mental health services that range from specialized personnel to specialized curriculum.
- 17 percent of students require alternative behavior plans and other tailored mental health supports.
- 12 percent of students are most acute in terms of behavior and need interagency supports, more intense individualized plans and all-out creative intervention.