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  Practice-Based Inquiry®
  Pulls Assessment and Improvement Together

Tom Wilson
  
Practice-Based Inquiry® is a methodology for generating accurate findings about the quality of complex action - such as learning and teaching in a school classroom - a complex institution in real time.

Through the use of PBI as an evaluation methodology, teachers become more proficient, and students learn better.

It makes sense that a Practice-Based Inquiry® visit significantly increases the options for better accountability and support of institutions that provide professional service.

All institutional accountability and support systems depend on how professional performance is measured. Practice-Based Inquiry allows a much more direct assessment of actual practice than the indirect artifacts of performance, such as tests scores or opinion surveys.

See State Accountability: Rhode Island - SALT for an example of this service.

The In-School Visit

A PBI school visit includes a valid assessment of school performance for school accountability and direct recommendations for school improvement.

Catalpa has had 15 years of experience developing a state-based system of school assessment, accountability and improvement based on Practice-Based Inquiry®.

PBI is based on English School Inspection and the American school accreditation visit.

PBI meets modern standards of rigor that result in valid conclusions about school performance.

Catalpa’s expertise is adapting the principles of Practice-Based Inquiry® to the needs of local and state school systems.

Teachers find that serving on a PBI school visit team is a powerful professional development experience.

PBI visits prove to be unusually valuable for difficult urban schools
(including turn-around schools).

Click here for more details about Practice-Based Inquiry »

School Inspection and Accountability
When the Presidential election was in full swing, Teachers College Press published Grading American Education: Getting Accountability Right by Richard Rothstein, Rebecca Jacobsen and Tamara Wilder. They made an amazing proposal: establish a national cadre of expert inspectors to observe actual teaching and learning in the nation’s schools.

Their research showed that school inspection had been productive in several countries.
Click here to read more »

 


Explore how Catalpa can help you use Practice-Based Inquiry®

Catalpa Visits
We conduct visits to individual schools that produce certified reports of findings on how well each school is performing.

Agencies often sponsor Catalpa conducted visits to pilot the PBI visit in their area. Visits are sometimes scheduled to find new answers about why a school is facing difficult or unusual circumstances.

We also offer visits for other public institutions that provide the services of practicing professionals.

Click here for more detail on Catalpa Visits »

Ideas to provoke thought and policy
Tom Wilson, creator of Practice-Based Inquiry®, and other PBI practitioners give these talks and workshops about PBI.

A time to think and act anew.
How Practice-Based Inquiry® is a new way to assess school performance that makes it possible to design school accountability and reform so that they can actually contribute to generating the high quality education our children need and deserve.

Thinking anew with an old tool.
PBI expands the arsenal of ways to measure school performance so that it is at last possible to construct accurate conclusions about what actually happens in a school’s classrooms when students are (or are not) learning.

“What did you learn in school today?”
Why and how PBI promotes great teaching.

Making accountability accountable.
How Practice-Based Inquiry® makes it possible for school accountability systems to be more accountable in supporting the results that the public wants for our schools.

What it takes to conduct PBI visits. Why you should.

Click here for more details on how Catalpa can help you »


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