State-wide Networks of School Accountability and Progressive Support: Rhode Island — SALT
PBI® supports Rhode Island’s leadership in making school accountability effective
The principles of Practice-Based Inquiry are the conceptual basis of the rigorous peer visit that is at the heart of the Rhode Island School Accountability for Learning and Teaching (SALT) initiative. SALT is the most comprehensive application of Practice-Based Inquiry to date. Click here for more about the RIDE/Catalpa relationship.
The Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) has shown unusual leadership by starting and sustaining a rigorous school visit system for the last 12 years. In 1997 RIDE launched the SALT initiative. In that year RIDE conducted its first school visit to pilot a rigorous visit protocol. RIDE sought a better system of state-wide accountability and school support than was the convention. SALT was funded on state funds. It is part of the Progressive Support and Intervention section of the Office of Middle and High School Reform. Click here to read more.
There is general agreement that the visit has provided unusually high value to school improvement in the state for what it has cost. One principal characterized the effort as, “The best thing RIDE has ever done for our schools.”
The central benefit of a SALT visit is that the accurate conclusions of a SALT report push the school, its district and RIDE to converse about the quality of the actual practice of teaching and learning at each school. Findings are school particular, encouraging improvement strategies that build upon and/or correct that school’s actual practice. Thus, the target of change remains focused on the most important question: “How does the practice of this school need to be improved to ensure that learning is improved?
In addition, the visit provides increased practical, substantive information so both the local school districts and RIDE can more effectively refine and implement their policies to improve learning.
RIDE staff build from this value of the visit by conducting follow-up sessions with the visited schools and by establishing visiting strategies for local school districts. Even in these shorter visits, which are more focused on school improvement than on accountability, RIDE works to ensure that the findings are legitimate.
Click here for more about the 2008-09 year of Taking Stock.
Click here for more about SALT staff.
Click here for more about documents and links related to SALT.
Facts About the SALT School Visit
SALT visit teams have written more than 6,400 conclusions that directly answer these questions for each school:
How well are students learning?
How well are teachers teaching to support student learning?
How well does the school support good teaching and learning?
The four initial pilot visits in 1997 were expanded after three years to 60 visits a year. While state budget cuts in 2003 forced RIDE to decrease the SALT visits to 30 and in 2008 to 10, RIDE has now conducted visits to more than 90% of Rhode Island schools and has conducted second visits to more than 50 schools.
Over the last 12 years, 2,200 team members have devoted a total of about 106,000 hours to understanding what makes Rhode Island schools tick in order to help them achieve their goal of providing better learning to all Rhode Island students. More than 2,000 teachers and principals, who practice in Rhode Island public schools, have served on SALT visit teams.
SALT visit teams have completed 360 visits to schools at all levels. These have been located in 36 of the state’s 37 districts, and comprise more than 90% of Rhode Island public schools. The resulting reports provide RIDE and the public with an unusual resource of findings on the state of learning and teaching in the state's schools.
Catalpa has trained and certified 13 former Rhode Island practicing teachers to serve as SALT team chairs, following their appointments as Regent SALT Fellows at RIDE. One Rhode Island principal is now serving as a Catalpa apprentice chair.
To ensure that team findings have the certainty of modern scientific rigor, the protocol for the SALT visit is based on the principles of Practice-Based Inquiry.
In addition, RIDE provides an array of pre- and post-visit services to help a school and its district tie the findings about the quality of school practice to a school’s planning and action for improvement.
RIDE has also designed and conducted 12 Commissioner’s visits to schools that have been identified as “needing improvement.”
Finally, RIDE and a number of local school districts are piloting a series of visit protocols to increase school and district knowledge about what is working and what is not working in specific learning areas: e.g. literacy.
SALT Results: The Impact of the SALT Visit
The findings of most SALT school reports are reported in the Rhode Island media. Schools frequently claim that they “turned around” because of the direct, honest, demanding and helpful findings of a SALT report, even if the report found that a school’s learning performance was poor. SALT has been recognized several times on the national level for working to find a better way to make accountability effective, rather than simply seeking compliance with No Child Left Behind.
In June 2004, Catalpa began conducting a web-based survey of team member perceptions of the value of the SALT visit as professional development and as a state department intervention to improve learning. The survey was also administered in 2006, 2007 and 2008 to team members who served after the survey was first administered. The response rate is high (52%), and the respondents represent well the total group of participants. The results for participants who served between May 1997 and June 2004 have been thoroughly analyzed and are presented in a Catalpa report. See The Value of Rhode Island’s SALT School Visit. Catalpa is finishing the analysis for team members from 2004-08 and a longitudinal analysis of changes in perceptions over the 12 years.
Key early results from this analysis in process follow:
Over the 12 years of SALT visits, 86% of teacher team-members say, that participating on the one week-long visit was the “most powerful professional development experience” they have ever experienced.
The majority of teachers say it “gave me new ways to think about my teaching” and “new ways to look at student learning in my classroom.” More than 90% of the teachers said the SALT visit made a “positive difference” in how well they actually taught.
Principals rate these items somewhat differently from teachers, but at a similarly high level. 88% of the 2008 principals saw their participation on the team as “the most powerful professional experience they have ever experienced.”
Between 83-87% of the team members, rated the effectiveness of the SALT visit “as a way to improve student learning” at a “high” or “very high” level. They place the SALT visit at the top of the survey’s list of various state department interventions. They rate the SALT visit as 30 percentage points more effective “to improve student learning” than “the State’s testing program.”
Team members (on teams between 2004 and 2008) strongly agree that the SALT visit “has “proved itself,” and is not “just a pilot that will fade away (90%).”
Even more relevant in this time of severe budget cuts, they do not see the SALT visit as “a nice luxury that we can’t afford at this time (90%).” Rather, they believe that RIDE should give “top priority to its continued use (70%).
They do not see the visit as “inherently too subjective (91%).” Rather, they see the SALT visit as in “the forefront of new and better ways for a state department to promote better accountability (69%).”
Taking Stock in 2008-09
Major state budget deficits in 2008-09 have forced RIDE to cut the number of SALT visits from 30 to 10. Determined to see the opportunities these cuts provided, the SALT project leadership decided to “take stock” to see what RIDE has learned from the SALT project and to pilot new forms of the visit. RIDE’s plans to marshal the data that has been collected about SALT’s impact, seek outside funding for an external study of SALT, and pilot new visit protocols with districts to explore the advantages of district supported visits. That work is proceeding apace this year.
SALT/Catalpa Relationship
Catalpa provides RIDE with key resources for the design, management and quality control of the SALT visit. Both RIDE and Catalpa have productively benefited from the 15 years they have worked together.
SALT Staff and Resources
The RIDE staff directly involved in this work include:
Peter McWalters, Commissioner
David Abbott, Deputy Commissioner
Roy Seitsinger, Jr., Director Office of Middle and High School Reform
Rick Richards, SALT Project Manager
Patricia Ricci, Project Administrative Assistant
SALT Fellows, who together have chaired more than 360 school visits: (*Active 2008-09)
Andre Audette, Visit Leader, Quality and Teacher Certification, Rhode Island Department of Education, Rhode Island.
Carol Belair, Elementary School Teacher, Wilbur and McMahon School, Little Compton, Rhode Island.
Michael Barnes, Assistant Superintendent, Foster-Glocester, Rhode Island.
Margaret Della Bitta, Retired. Previously: Science Teacher, South Kingston High School, South Kingston, Rhode Island.
Ruth Haynsworth, Retired. Previously: 5th Grade Teacher, Stony Lane Elementary School, East Greenwich, Rhode Island.
Catherine Hutz, Previously: English Teacher, Smithfield High School, Smithfield, Rhode Island.
Thomas Kenworthy,* Previously Principal, North Cumberland Middle School, North Cumberland, Rhode Island.
JoAnn LaBranche, Assistant to the Superintendent for High School Reform, Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
Sandy Olson, Retired. Previously: 7th Grade English Language Arts Teacher/Team Leader, Ponaganset Middle School, Foster-Glocester, Rhode Island.
Pat Ribeiro, 1st Grade Teacher, Providence Street School, West Warwick, Rhode Island.
Donna Reinalda, Principal, John J. McLaughlin Cumberland Hill Elementary School, Cumberland, Rhode Island.
Jeannine Magliocco, Principal, Lonsdale Elementary School, Lincoln, Rhode Island.
Cynthia Scheller,* Teacher, Aldrich Junior High School, Warwick, Rhode Island.
Elaine Zagrodny,* Reading Specialist, Woonsocket Middle School, Woonsocket, Rhode Island.
You will find a full array of SALT Visit Guides, many of the SALT Guides, and other information related to SALT at the Rhode Island Department of Education web site.
For more information about SALT contact:
Rick Richards
SALT Project Director
Rhode Island Department of Education
Office of Progressive Support and Intervention
255 Westminster Street # 524
Providence, RI 02903-3400
401-222-8401
E-mail: rick.richards@ride.ri.gov
Website: http://www.ride.ri.gov/PSI/salt/default.aspx
For more information about Catalpa's role in the SALT project, please contact Catalpa.
Key SALT Documents
Research Documents
Salt 360 Feedback and Evaluation Study: Phase One: Report to RIDE and SALT Leadership.
The Value of Rhode Island's SALT School Visit: A survey study of the perceptions of SALT visit team members
Protocol Documents
SALT: A Blueprint for School Accountability for Learning and Teaching
The SALT Visit Protocol
Handbook for Chairs of the SALT School Visit, 2nd Edition Revised
SALT Visit Documents (80 protocol and guidance documents for the SALT Visit)
SALT Team Recruitment Brochure Download
SALT School Visit Reports (a selection)
SALT Visit Report for Leo A. Savoy School
The SALT visit team to this urban elementary school saw a school working hard to improve its performance.
SALT Vist Team Report for Samuel W. Bridgham Middle School
The visit team to this urban middle school saw important difficulties in school performance.
SALT Visit Team Report for Coventry High School
The visit team to this large suburban high school saw a school struggling reasonably well with several major problems.
SALT Visit Team Report for Primrose Hill School
The visit team to this suburban elementary school saw an amazing school at work.
SALT Visit Team Report for Laurel Hill Avenue Elementary School
The SALT visit to this urban elementary school saw a school struggling to move forward.
SALT Visit Report for East Greenwich High School
The SALT visit team found that this moderate size suburban high school was doing a good job of moving forward in learning and teaching in spite of a teacher's strike and administrative turn-over.
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