A Conversation with Connie Kamm

By Tracey Arial

Connie Kamm's breakout session began with many promises. She promised information about the 90/90/90 school studies. She promised to describe student-centred holistic accountability. She promised to talk about collecting, organizing, analyzing and testing key data describing schools. More than anything else, though, she wanted to give participants in the room an opportunity to ask questions, share successes and discuss what's happening in their schools.

In the end, she achieved all her objectives. The two hour session went fast.

She began answering questions about how schools can engage parents more in an era of diminishing community involvement. That led to a discussion about hospitality nights, spaghetti dinners and outdoor performances by students.

The description of a murder mystery theatre play written and performed by students inspired other participants to share their successes. One person described taking students out of the classroom for first-hand nature study. Another talked about a reading and writing literacy project that provided laptops to at-risk students who frequently lose papers. Someone else talked about creating links between adaptive learning teachers. The highlight came when someone mentioned an annual memory book published and compiled by students. Last year, some of those students turned four of their memory stories into a film that was launched in the community. "It taught the whole community about challenges in coming to Canada."

Sharing successes and developing and measuring our strategies for student-centred holistic accountability remains the only way to truly improve academic achievement for all students, said Kamm. The focus must remain on the progress of individual students, not on comparisons with one another.

That was a perfect opening for Kamm to describe a group of schools that successfully use student-centred accountability models to succeed. The schools are called 90/90/90 schools because ninety percent of their students come from minority groups and 90% live in poverty, yet 90% achieve test scores meeting or exceeding grade level expectations.

Kamm said these schools share nine important characteristics:

• Teachers have time to collaborate;
• Parents get regular, timely and accurate feedback;
• Schedules are rearranged for maximum student learning;
• Research, action, and frequent mid-course corrections occur;
• Teachers get jobs that meet their abilities and backgrounds;
• There is intensive focus on student data from multiple sources;
• Teachers conduct common assessments and regularly examine student work for proficiency;
• Every adult in the system takes on a leadership role and benefits from professional development opportunities; and
• Cross-discipline integration occurs.

To finish the session, Kamm reminded educators about their "Hippocratic" Oath: to "take care of every student's learning."

To learn more about making a positive impact on student achievement, visit the Centre for Performance Assessment web site at www.makingstandardswork.com.

The Implementation Design Committee wants to extend a big thank you to Connie Kamm for choosing to fill in for Douglas B. Reeves at the last minute. A snow storm trapped Mr. Reeves in his home city of Boston.

Ms. Kamm agreed to fill the immense shoes of Mr. Reeves on Sunday morning. She then spent the rest of the day preparing her presentation and arranging her flights from Phoenix to Quebec.

Thanks also to Ms. Kamm's husband who changed her flights after she realized in the air that her destination should have been Montreal rather than Quebec City. We're relieved that she made it to the conference on time and well-prepared. Thank you.

After arranging his replacement this year, Mr. Reeves has also agreed to attend next year's conference. Many thanks.