INSIDE ISD / FCPS
Data-Driven Instruction [INSIDE Instructional Services, Fall 2008]
Newsletter by Hope Katz Gibbs with Peter Noonan
Fairfax County Public Schools
Fall 2008
“When it comes to maximizing student performance, concepts like data-driven instruction are often bandied about in education circles
as the ‘new thing,’ writes Fairfax County Public Schools Assistant Superintendent Peter Noonan in the Fall 2008 issue of INSIDE, a quarterly newsletter for his Instructional Services Division. “This suggests that perhaps the idea isn’t sound, or it will likely go out of favor when another educational fad becomes more popular.”
Nonetheless, he adds, he has long been a proponent of this concept, and knows that with technological tools such as eCART principals and educators can successfully use data to help all students master
the curriculum.
“A tool like eCART helps educators thoroughly and concretely understand where students stand in the core subjects so they can intervene in the areas where kids are struggling, and enhance
learning opportunities in the areas that they have already mastered,” he explains.
INSIDE Instructional Services [Fairfax County Public Schools]
Newsletter by Hope Katz Gibbs with Peter Noonan
Fairfax County Public Schools
Summer 2008
This newsletter is a quarterly publication for Peter Noonan, assistant superintendent of instructional services at Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS). Its mission is to share thoughts and ideas about curriculum and assessment that are fundamental to the work that principals and teachers are doing to improve student achievement.
This first issue, entitled “Staying Ahead of the Curve,” was published in the summer of 2008. It focused on how three FCPS principals adopted strategies from the cutting-edge book on assessment (by the same name) edited by education expert Douglas Reeves.
“The 268-page hardback, published last year by Solution Tree, features essays by a dozen authors who I consider to be the greatest minds in assessment,” says Noonan, who selected three chapters to have his principals focus on.