About the Author: Dr. Susan Paul is the principal of Hill-Murray School, a coeducational private school in Maplewood, Minnesota. Her email address is spaul@mail.hill-murray.pvt.k12.mn.us.

Introduction

Hill-Murray School is a coeducational Catholic school located in suburban Saint Paul, Minnesota, with a student population of 930 students in grades seven through twelve. We have been accredited through the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools since 1978 and received our outcomes endorsement (OE) in the spring of 1999, becoming one of the first schools in Minnesota to complete the process.

In making the commitment to the outcomes accreditation process (now called outcomes endorsement) in 1993, we were very conscious that an investment in the process by everyone—from teachers to our board, from administration to support staff--was critical to its success. We gathered as a staff over an 18-month period to understand OE and its impact. Through the use of all-staff meetings and board meetings, we discussed the pros and cons of the method, including how we should budget for it, where we would find the extra time needed, and what kind of investment would be needed from each individual staff member. A compelling argument for OE was that the model was a continuous process, rather than an event occurring every seven years. A workable budget, board support, and creative uses of time and resources helped solidify our choice.

Throughout the past six years, we have reminded ourselves of the phrase, "by us, for us," to focus our attention on what was best for our students, rather than what would fulfill the requirements of an accreditation report form. Then new to Minnesota, the model gave us the flexibility to create our own direction but few road maps to follow! Our staff worked together for the benefit of our students, in the context of a school improvement plan. Everyone played a part in the process--teachers, administrators, and support staff. The OE format called for us to meet across departmental lines, beyond "territorial" divisions. The model called for us to set individual agendas aside and to focus on agreed-upon target goals. We were enthusiastic in our approach to improving Hill-Murray--we were making a difference for our students. We met together, we ate together, we sometimes whined together. We enjoyed the support of one another in the pursuit of our target area goals, especially appreciating the dedication of our steering committee.

Writing as a Target Area Goal

When we chose writing as one of our target areas, our goal was simple: Students will improve their writing skills in order to express themselves more clearly. As a staff, we first set about educating ourselves on holistic scoring and the use of rubrics, with the help and expertise of a state writing consultant. We learned how to create rubrics that effectively assess the developmental skills of both our middle school and high school students, as well as how to establish an effective and efficient way in which to score an entire student body’s work in just two days.

Our English Department helped to create an all-school format for writing and developed a set of developmentally appropriate grade level mastery "benchmarks" for grades seven through twelve. These benchmarks, our "scope and sequence" for writing, included aspects of grammar, mechanics, process, form, and organization and were included in a teaching session in which members of the department helped non-English teachers align their own writing expectations, again developmentally appropriate to their grade level.

All of our students were asked to complete at least one writing assignment in every course every semester, and teachers gave specific feedback on the writing for each assignment. Whether in a mathematics class or in physical education, our belief was that more frequent writing, coupled with specific writing strategies introduced through the English curriculum, would positively impact our students’ ability to express themselves clearly.

Additionally, every student in every grade level was asked to complete a formal on-demand essay from a given prompt. Students were first introduced to the prompt, then allowed to create a rough draft, and finally asked to revise the piece into a finished product. Using faculty inservice time, all teachers gathered to score the essays, which were identified only by student number. Two to three teachers reviewed each essay, using a four-point rubric established by our Writing Committee, to assess clarity, coherence, organization, level of detail, and language usage.

Results were then posted, allowing students to get feedback on their writing in the form of written remarks, a letter grade or point value, oral remarks, or via peer editing opportunities. The on-demand essay was administered schoolwide for three consecutive years, 1996-1998. Over the three-year period, our students did demonstrate improvement in that fewer students received a score of one and more students received a score of four.

Another opportunity to assess our progress came in 1999 when all public school tenth graders were given the Minnesota Basic Standards test in written composition for the first time. The test is designed as a "safety net" to ensure that high school graduates have a minimum competency in writing. Students must re-take the test until they pass. Hill-Murray, although not mandated by the state because of its private school status, chose to participate in the statewide test program in order to provide another comparable and objective measure of growth toward our goal of improving students’ ability to express themselves.

Standardized test results were also used as a common metric measure of our students’ progress. The "language usage" portion of a standardized test for each grade level (SAT, PLAN, PSAT, and ACT) was used to measure an improvement in writing skills. For example, the PLAN test, designed by American College Testing, is administered to all Hill-Murray tenth graders in the fall and serves as an indicator for the ACT assessment. Our results over the period from 95-96 to 97-98 demonstrated a positive trend: the percentage of Hill-Murray tenth graders in the lowest quartile decreased over the three years while the percentage of students in the highest quartile increased. The ACT, taken by most Hill-Murray juniors and seniors over the period from 1995, 1996, and 1997, also showed a positive trend: again, the percentage of students in the lowest quartile decreased significantly over the three years while the percentage of students in the highest quartile increased.

Identification of a Sub-Population for Writing

We chose to identify as the sub-population for writing, those students that scored at <26% (local percentile) on the Language Expression portion of the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT). The SAT is used as a placement test for all incoming freshmen applying for admission to Hill-Murray and is a test used for placement in many Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis.

We began the process in 1997 by reviewing the Language Expression scores of all current and all potential incoming Hill-Murray students. We identified a sub-population for each class, grades nine through twelve, as well as in our current eighth grade. We also looked at the class rank of each student identified to note patterns or discrepancies. As a further cross-reference, we compared the list of those in the sub-population with the results of the on-demand essay for the last three years. We were particularly looking at those who had scored a "1" or less on the essay to help validate our means of identification. Additionally, the results of the Minnesota Basic Standards Test in Writing (implemented as a graduation requirement by Minnesota in 1999) serves to further inform us as to the students achieving in the lowest quartile.

Now, during our August faculty workshops, the names of students in this sub-population are communicated to the English Department, specifically ninth grade teachers, so that, from the beginning of the year, teachers can be aware of the special needs of their student writers. We believe that this process of early identification, conducted annually, will enable us to notify teachers and other student services personnel of those students who may be in need of special attention, skill development, and remediation in the area of writing.

Summary of Results

As a result of our activities emphasizing the improvement of writing, a number of initiatives are now a part of our Hill-Murray curriculum. We have adopted a school-wide format for written assignments that includes expectations for both style and presentation. All teachers in all curricular areas now assign a writing assignment and give students feedback at least once each semester. Teachers across the curriculum have better aligned their expectations for writing using the developmental scope and sequence for writing that was developed and adopted by the English Department.

Results of the on-demand essay indicate that student writing improved. A look at the scores from the eleventh grade, for example, points to an increase in the number of students receiving fours, and a decrease in the number of students receiving ones, twos and threes, based on a four-point rubric. Standardized test results of the sophomores taking the PLAN test also appear to indicate that the percentage of those students in the lowest quartile has decreased while the percentage of students in the highest quartile has increased. Additionally, the results from the juniors and seniors taking the ACT test indicate the percentage of students in the lowest quartile has also decreased.

Implications for the Future

Clearly, our students are writing more often and are receiving specific feedback regarding their efforts to clearly express themselves. Perhaps more significantly, we have devised a way of identifying incoming students whose writing skills put them in the lowest quartile of our student population. By targeting writing as an area for improvement, we feel more confident of our readiness to help those students most in need of skill development.

Throughout the five-year process, our staff truly learned by doing, and we learned from our mistakes along the way. We now know that using a baseline is not the final common measure and perhaps we "lost" a year collecting data when we could have been creating interventions. Some of our research methodologies were flawed—writing effective surveys is an art! We also know that the way questions and responses are phrased can have a radical impact on the data collected. And we now believe that identifying sub-populations earlier would have meant that we would have addressed students in need earlier, allowing more time for implementation of effective interventions.

For Hill-Murray, the process of outcomes endorsement continues to work. We’ve grown in our sense of community, having had lots of fun together; sharing both our successes and our frustrations. Most importantly, we’ve stuck with it. Hill-Murray has experienced an unusually large turnover in staff since we began the process. The "we" has changed as we said goodbye to some staff members and welcomed others. Five years can be a long time to sustain any initiative, but we believe that focusing on our students (Who can argue with that?) in a process of continual improvement has made all the difference.