GradNation Community Summits
Early Warning and Intervention Systems Toolkit
Guide Content
1. Introduction
2. Resources
3. Speaker Recommendations
4. Alliance Partners
5. Multi-Media and Suggested Reading
1. Introduction
Early warning systems use readily available data to alert teachers and administrators about students who are on the path to dropping out of school. A key benefit of early warning systems is that they help educators to know what to look for amid the mountains of data about students. Early warning systems can be implemented at the middle and high school levels and can provide information about students as early as in the 6th grade. Researchers from the Everyone Graduates Center found that more than 50% of the dropouts in Philadelphia could be identified in eighth grade using just three indicators:
1) Failing mathematics in eighth grade
2) Failing English in eighth grade
3) Attending school less than 80% of the time
An ideal early warning system for a district is developed fromthat district’s data.At a minimum, creating an early warning system involves:
· Assembling longitudinal data for individual students on graduation status and on potential predictors of dropout, such as student attendance, behavior, grades, and test scores,
· Identifying the threshold level of each predictor that gives students a high probability of dropping out, and
· Checking that the predictors identify a high percentage of the students in that district who drop out of school.
http://new.every1graduates.org/tools-and-models/early-warning-and-response-systems/
2. Resources
Building a Robust Data System in Washington: How Effective Use of Data Can Improve Instruction and Student Achievement
The Partnership for Learning, a Washington State-based group promoting education improvement, released this second-in-a-series report about using student achievement data effectively to improve instruction and learning. The report addresses Washington’s status in the Data Quality Campaign’s (DQC) 2009 survey of data system elements and the work that remains to implement DQC’s state actions to utilize the data.
http://www.partnership4learning.org/docs/reports/Building_a_Robust_Data_System_in_WA.pdf
Data Quality Campaign
The Data Quality Campaign (DQC) is the nation’s leading voice oneducation datapolicy and use. Remarkable progress has been made in states over the last decade to ensure that useful data is collected, thanks to dedicated policymakers and advocates. But we know that in too many communities, those who most need information to help the students they care about do not have it. That needs to change. More than any other organization, DQC understands the challenges and opportunities around using data to improve outcomes for all students.
http://dataqualitycampaign.org/
Developing Early Warning Systems to Identify Potential High School Dropouts
This guide from the National High School Center discusses the factors that help predict the probability that individual students will eventually drop out of high school prior to graduating and includes step-by-step instructions for building an early warning system. The National High School Center’s Early Warning Indicator Tool helps districts who have the capacity to analyze their own student data.
http://www.betterhighschools.org/pubs/ews_guide.asp
Early Warning Systems for High School and the Middle Grades
This brochure from the National High School Center details what early warning systems are and how they can be used to identify and support students who are at risk of school dropout. It provides a brief overview of the Early Warning System Middle Grades (EWS MG) Tool and the Early Warning System High School (EWS HS) Tool. The brochure also defines the Early Warning Intervention and Monitoring System (EWIMS), which is a process that provides support to students at risk of dropping out.
http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED521558
On Track to Success: The Use of Early Warning Indicator and Intervention System to Build a Grad Nation
This report from Civic Enterprises and the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University examines the current state of early warning system implementation across the country. The system uses early warning indicators (EWIs) to intervene with students who are falling off-track, and it is a relatively new practice. Schools and districts are just beginning to understand, design, and develop their own EWI systems to maximize their impact on student engagement and achievement.
http://new.every1graduates.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/on_track_for_success.pdf
Three Steps to Building an Early Warning and Invention System for Potential Dropouts
This PowerPoint from the Everyone Graduates Center discusses the growing alarm of high dropout rates, which has created a groundswell of interest to identify and respond to the needs of students who are at risk of dropping out of high school. This research finds that a substantial percentage of eventual dropouts can be identified at the key transition points of sixth and ninth grades using indicators from attendance, behavior, and course performance. Most dropouts are identifiable years before they dropout, most struggle in or disengage from school for three to four years before they dropout, and most ultimately want to graduate. This research, coupled with increased electronic access to data, is propelling districts and schools to begin developing early warning and collaborative response systems. These systems are using student-level administrative data to identify students who face a great likelihood of not graduating from high school without effective intervention. They enable district- and school-based teams of adults to respond to students’ needs in an appropriate, coordinated, and timely manner, and they continuously monitor student progress towards graduation. The PowerPoint presents three steps that can be taken to reduce dropouts in your community. The first is to understand the dropout problem in your community, the second is build an early warning, prevention, and intervention system, and the third is to involve the community.
http://new.every1graduates.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Three_Steps.pdf
Using Early-Warning Data to Improve Graduation Rates: Closing Cracks in the Education System
This policy brief from Alliance for Excellent Education highlights emerging data showing that academic factors are better indicators of potential dropouts than socioeconomic factors. The report recommends that schools formalize the use of early-warning data to create actionable plans for confronting the dropout problem on a more individual basis, and it provides suggestions for developing early-warning systems.
http://all4ed.org/reports-factsheets/using-early-warning-data-to-improve-graduation-rates-closing-cracks-in-the-education-system/
3. Speaker recommendations
Below is a sampling of speaker recommendations for this topic. The contact information may be included for a speaker, but if you would like to find out more about a specific speaker or discuss additional speaker options, please contact your Summit Manager.
Robert Balfanz, PhD. is a co-director of the Everyone Graduates Center and research scientist at the Center for Social Organization of Schools, John Hopkins University. He is the co-director of Talent Development Secondary, which is currently working with more than 100 high-poverty secondary schools to develop, implement and evaluate comprehensive whole school reforms. He is also co-operator of the Baltimore Talent Development High School, an Innovation High School run in partnership with the Baltimore City Public School System. He has published widely on secondary school reform, high school dropouts, early warning systems and instructional interventions in high-poverty schools. Recent work includes Locating the Dropout Crisis, with co-author Nettie Legters, in which they identify the number and location of high schools with high dropout rates and What Your Community Can Do to End its Dropout Crisis. Dr. Balfanz is the first recipient of the Alliance For Excellent Education’s Everyone a Graduate Award.
Contact Information:
Bob Wise, the former West Virginia Governor, is currently the President of the Alliance for Excellent Education (the Alliance). The Alliance is a nonprofit organization that has become a national leader for reforming the nation’s high schools so that all students graduate from high school prepared to succeed in college and a career. With Governor Wise’s leadership since 2005, the Alliance has become a respected advocate for the Common Core State Standards, deeper learning, digital learning, adolescent literacy, and other key education policy issues.
4. Alliance Partners
View our list of Alliance Partners for information about their work and for potential local engagement and/or strategy development regarding your summit. IF you would like to make a connection, contact your Summit Manager at America’s Promise, who can help facilitate an introduction.
5. Multi-Media and Suggested Reading
An Early Warning System
http://new.every1graduates.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Early_Warning_System_Neild_Balfanz_Herzog.pdf
Early Warning Indicator Systems: A Tool for High-Performing Middle Grades Schools
This briefing held on June 20, 2012 discussed the impact of using early warning indicator systems—which identify students with a high risk of dropping out as early as sixth grade—to keep students on track for graduation and to accelerate successful student progress. The speakers in the video include representatives from a middle school, the research community, and congressional staff.
http://all4ed.org/webinar-event/early-warning-indicator-systems-a-tool-for-high-performing-middle-grades-schools/
How ‘Early Warning Systems’ are Keeping Kids in School
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/how-early-warning-systems-are-keeping-kids-in-school/2012/04/10/gIQAlICK8S_blog.html
Montgomery County Looks for Even Earlier Warnings
http://all4ed.org/montgomery-county-looks-for-even-earlier-early-warnings/
WAMU – Why Kids Drop Out: Identifying the Early Warning Signs
http://www.americangraduatedc.org/content/why-kids-drop-out-identifying-early-warning-signs
Early Warning and Intervention Systems Toolkit 3