Dramatic Gains in Third-Grade ELA Results at Birmingham City Schools (AL)

Birmingham City Schools (AL)

In spring 2024, third-graders in Birmingham City Schools defied the odds and rose to a level of post-pandemic recovery rarely seen, with 81% scoring on or above grade level in ELA (English Language Arts) on the 2024 state exam (Alabama Comprehensive Assessment Program, or ACAP), up from 53% the year before.¹ (Exhibit 1)

These gains in ELA scores were particularly important to the third-grade students of Birmingham City Schools (BCS). According to the Alabama Literacy Act passed by the state of Alabama in 2019, beginning with the 2023-24 school year, third-graders who did not demonstrate grade-level ELA skills on ELA on the ACAP could not be promoted to fourth grade.²

BCS Superintendent Mark Sullivan, who forged a career for over 20 years in the district before assuming the superintendency in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, has been particularly proud of the progress the district has made to address learning loss. Superintendent Sullivan and his team had been taking aggressive measures during SY2023 and SY2024 to raise achievement for their students. Seeing these efforts pay off with measurable results, Sullivan and his team are energized to keep the positive momentum going and make a lasting difference for the students in their district.

How Did Birmingham City Schools Achieve These Results?

Superintendent Sullivan had been hearing of remarkable results in literacy, math, and attendance being realized in other districts with the Breakthrough Results program run by District Management Group (DMG). He learned that the program consisted of highly specific goals, actionable data, short-cycle iterations, professional development, and performance coaching, all of which were methodically structured to deliver results in 10 weeks. The Breakthrough Results program did not involve introducing new curriculum or hiring new staff, but instead focused on building capacity among the district’s teachers and staff while they worked collaboratively to deliver results for their students.

Testing the Waters: 2023 Pilot

Intent on taking action to address learning loss, Sullivan decided to pilot this 10-week program in the spring of 2023. He chose to focus on third-grade math achievement to address the significant decline in third-grade numeracy skills reflected in the SY2022 ACAP.

By the end of the 10-week program in spring 2023, the results were impressive: the scores of the 297 students in the program grew nearly twice as much as the scores of similar students (19 point growth vs. 10 point growth) from baseline to post-assessment (Exhibit 2).³

Implementing Breakthrough Results for SY2024

Based on the very positive results of this small pilot program, Sullivan and his team decided to expand the Breakthrough Results program during SY2024 to focus on math as well as literacy for all third-graders across all 28 elementary schools. They decided to implement two cycles of work—one eight-week cycle in the fall and a second eight-week cycle over the winter/spring period. Remarkable results were achieved in both math and literacy; in this article, we focus on sharing the specifics on the work on literacy.

- Fall 2023: Focusing on Comprehension

BCS decided to focus on improving students’ skills in comprehension, such as the ability to identify the main idea and supporting details, and to describe literary elements within a story, including setting, plot, characters, and themes. For this work, 762 third-grade students were identified based on their literacy pre-assessment score. A total of 143 teachers, instructional coaches, and assistant principals were organized into 28 school-based Breakthrough Results teams.

Based on this eight-week program, 85% of third-grade BTR students demonstrated growth on the i-Ready reading assessment from the beginning of year (BOY) to the middle of year (MOY). (Exhibit 3).

- Spring 2024: Focus on Fluency

In the spring, the focus was shifted to fluency, and words per minute (WPM) was used as an indicator of growth. Based on the i-Ready MOY Oral Reading Fluency assessment, 362 third-grade students reading between 50 and 70 words per minute were identified for this work. A total of 142 teachers, coaches, specialists, and assistant principals were organized into 28 school-based Breakthrough Results teams.

Based on the eight-week Breakthrough Results work, students in the BTR early literacy program showed an average word per minute increase of 26% from pre- to post-assessment scores (Exhibit 4).

Seeing the Difference in ELA ACAP Results

These two cycles of work were key drivers of the district’s increase in third-grade ELA ACAP scores: 81% of Birmingham City Schools’ third-graders met the state ELA requirements compared to only 53% the year before. The focus on data combined with the performance coaching helped the teams keep the focus on getting results while building capacity and collaboration among teachers and staff. Chief Academic Officer Pam Williams appreciated “the discipline that the Breakthrough Results process enforced on the schools. The data is analyzed and ready for the weekly meetings. Usually, other job responsibilities got in the way, but with Breakthrough Results and the performance coaches, the team focused on looking at the data and making sure they discussed it each week. Looking at the data each week made a lot of difference.”

Building Teacher and Staff Capacity to Drive the Work Ahead

Many in the district had initially expressed resistance to implementing the Breakthrough Results program. They were skeptical about having performance coaches who are not subject experts, having an outside firm that did not know their students, and having yet another program thrust upon teachers and staff already overloaded. Yet, the participants in the Breakthrough Results program ended up finding tremendous value: Teachers enjoyed working collaboratively together, feeling the support of district leadership, and developing their data skills and leadership skills with the support of their performance coach.

Most of all, the teachers and staff who worked on third-grade literacy gained tremendous satisfaction from seeing their students gain skills and confidence. They were delivering on the mission that had brought them to the teaching profession. District Management Group had supported the work by helping to prepare data and providing the coaching to build skills, but Birmingham City Schools knows it is their teachers, their curriculum, and their students that are making things happen! The whole district has been energized by the results they have achieved, which is creating momentum and enthusiasm for what the district can achieve for all of the students of Birmingham City Schools.