District Administrator Interview (Appendix B)

Appendix B. REL Midwest CLC Study – District Administrator Interview DRAFT

Improving Adolescent Literacy Across the Curriculum in High Schools

District Administrator Interview

The Improving Adolescent Literacy Across the Curriculum in High Schools project is an effort to improve students’ performance in high school-level coursework and state tests through the use of the Content Literacy Curriculum (CLC) -- a school-wide, literacy across the curriculum school reform framework.

High schools in the Midwest have been selected to participate in a national study of the CLC program. The US Department of Education has sponsored this study of the CLC to determine if this program has a positive impact on how students read and how well they do in high school.

This interview asks questions about your school’s current literacy improvement efforts and should take about 90 minutes to complete. Your responses will be kept strictly confidential – we are looking at responses overall, not at what specific individuals have to say.

MDRC

New York, NY

www.mdrc.org

For questions, call Jim Kemple at

Jim.Kemple@mdrc.org

The U.S. Department of Education wants to protect the privacy of individuals who participate in surveys. Your answers will be combined with other surveys, and no one will know how you answered the questions. This survey is authorized by law (1) Sections 171(b) and 173 of the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002, Pub. L. 107-279 (2002); and (2) Section 9601 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), as amended by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 (Pub. L. 107-110).

According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, no persons are required to respond to a collection of information unless it displays a valid OMB control number. The valid OMB control number for this information collection is XXXX-XXXX. The time required to complete this information collection is estimated to average 90 minutes per respondent, including the time to review instructions, gather the data needed, and complete and review the information collected. If you have any comments concerning the accuracy of the time estimate(s) or suggestions for improving this form, please write to: U.S. Department of Education, Washington, DC 20202. If you have comments or concerns regarding the status of your individual submission of this form, write directly to: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, 555 New Jersey Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20208.

We are interested in discussing what is currently going on at the high schools in your district.

Literacy Instruction/ Formal Literacy Initiative or Intervention

1. Is improving literacy instruction important in your district?

2. Do you have a role in improving the literacy instruction in your district? If yes, Describe your role in improving literacy instruction in your district.

3. Is your district currently participating in a formal initiative or intervention to improve literacy?

If YES, continue to question 4.

If NO, continue to question 12.

4. What is the name of the initiative?

5. Why was the program started in your district?

Probe: Was there a perception of need or failure that prompted the use of this program?

6. Describe the structure of this initiative?

7. What are some of the primary strengths of this literacy instruction?

8. What are some of the primary challenges to this literacy instruction?

9. In the time that you have implemented a formal literacy intervention at your school have you seen any early evidence that it is affecting academic performance in terms of:

1. Test scores?

2. Grades?

3. Attendance?

4. Other outcomes?

Materials

10. Do schools in your district currently use any specific literacy based intervention materials (for example: school-wide text sets and/or literacy based intervention materials, including software) for the content areas of social studies, science, and mathematics? Explain.

11. Is the district currently using technology in classrooms to support literacy instruction? Explain.

Probe: Technology includes listening centers, computers, printers, handhelds, or intervention

software.

12. Is there anything your district currently needs to better support literacy instruction? Explain.

Assessment

13. Do teachers in your district currently use assessment data for instructional planning? If so, how?

14. Is assessment data used to adjust school-based training activities? If so, how?

Data-Driven Instruction

15. Describe the decisions you make as an administrator based on assessment data.

16. Do you currently have a system of grade-level teams or literacy teams in place at schools in your district?

If YES, continue to question 17.

If NO, continue to question 28.

17. Does this team collaborate on instruction?

If YES, continue to question 18. If NO, continue to question 19.

18. Do they collaborate on instruction to support to literacy activities and support struggling readers, generally?

19. Does this team analyze assessment results together?

If YES, continue to question 20. If NO, continue to question 22.

20. Does this analysis lend to better support of literacy activities and supporting struggling readers, generally? If yes, how?

21. How do they use assessment data to support instruction?

22. Do they do anything else to address the needs of struggling readers? What?

23. Who is on the team (by role)?

24. How often do they meet?

25. What do their responsibilities include?

26. Do you attend these meetings?

27. How satisfied are you with the kinds of discussions that take place during these meetings?

Professional Development

28. What types of professional development have your building administrators received so far this school year and including last summer? Describe in detail.

Probe: Some examples of professional development are: differentiated instruction, student centered classrooms, integrated curriculum across content areas, cognitive and metacognitive strategies, and student ownership.

29. Which other district staff were involved in this professional development?

30. Did your building administrators receive any literacy focused professional development?

31. Which other district staff were involved in literacy professional development?

Attitudes/Support

32. How would you say that you are feeling about improving literacy in your district right now?

33. How would you say that staff members at your schools are feeling about improving literacy instruction right now?

34. How would you say that other administrators at the district level are feeling about improving literacy instruction right now?

Closing Comments

35. Is there anything else you would like to add regarding literacy activities for struggling readers in your district?