PDK Audit - Fact Sheet

September 4, 2007

Goal: To move WCPSS and Wake County children to the next level academically

Phi Delta Kappa International: professional association for educators founded in 1906, and serving more than 500,000 members worldwide by preparing the next generation of educators through a wide range of innovative initiatives

Curriculum Management Audit: an independent examination of three data sources: documents, interviews, and site visits. These are gathered and corroborated to reveal the extent to which a school district is meeting standards. A public report is issued as the final phase of the auditing process. Phi Delta Kappa uses business auditing practices developed by Peat Marwick and Mitchell in evaluating documents and interviewing government and business leaders, parents, administrators and teachers. The audit is based upon generally accepted standards pertaining to effective organizations.

Curriculum Management Audits: performed in hundreds of school systems including the School District of Philadelphia with 265 schools, Montgomery County, Maryland School District with 188 schools, Baltimore, Maryland School District with 173 schools and other school systems, some with fewer than a dozen schools

Audit Team Looks at 5 Key Standards

Governance and control (policy);
Direction and learner expectation;
Connectivity and consistency (alignment of programs);
Assessment and feedback (use of data to drive decisions);
Productivity and efficiency.

8 Recommendation Areas
Recommendation 1: OPPORTUNITY
Meet students' needs equitably, and eliminate the achievement gap
Implement district plans and goals to provide equal access to comparable programs, services and opportunities to impact student success. Eliminate the achievement gap between ethnic and socioeconomic student groups. Take further steps to allocate resources on the basis of need.

Recommendation 2: CONSISTENCY
Unite strategic planning -- from the school board to the administration to the school to the classroom
Refocus the planning process to attain improved internal system connectivity in order to realize the strategic direction for the school district.

Recommendation 3: GOVERNANCE
Strengthen school board and administrative direction of curriculum management
Develop, revise and adopt board policies and administrative regulations to communicate governance expectations, provide adequate direction to employees, and establish a framework for accountability regarding curriculum management and related functions of the district.

Recommendation 4: MANAGEMENT
Actively direct and support the curriculum
Develop and document a comprehensive curriculum management process. Revise curriculum resources/documents to meet audit criteria and provide improved quality control. Develop single-source primary curriculum guides, and streamline online documents to guide instruction and assessment. Continue use of revised online resources, facilitate access by all staff, and continue the training of administrators and teachers in effective and efficient use of these resources.

Recommendation 5: EVALUATION
Increase the use of data in decision making
Formalize comprehensive assessment procedures to provide data for decision making at all levels of the system. Establish a formalized process for selection, implementation and evaluation of programs utilizing data that will be used as feedback for revision or continuation of programs and practices.

Recommendation 6: BUDGETING
Tie school system resources to the needs of the curriculum
Develop and implement a multi-year plan that fully aligns district and building level resources to curricular goals and strategic priorities and that includes systematic cost-benefit analyses to assure that expenditures are producing desired results.

Recommendation 7: INSTRUCTION
Unify and enhance training and development
Establish a plan for centralized professional development that provides for coordinated training in the essential competencies necessary for effective delivery of the written curriculum, including institutionalization of expectations for instructional best practices and monitoring. Revise the teacher appraisal program to focus on implementation of district expectations and to provide teachers with constructive feedback to improve classroom performance.

Recommendation 8: ORGANIZATION
Clarify roles and responsibilities and increase effectiveness
Adopt policies governing the management of job descriptions and the table of organization. Prepare and adopt a set of quality job descriptions and a table of organization consistent with sound management principles. Reconfigure the staff to provide greater flexibility in accommodating growth and to improve support and supervision for principals, staff and area superintendents.

By the Numbers

23	Number of external auditors
26	Number of weeks in audit process
479	Number of persons interviewed in audit process
50,000	Number of pages of documents reviewed in audit process
3,989	Number of classrooms visited in audit process
400	Number of pages in audit report
8	Number of recommendation areas in audit report
117	Number of action steps in audit report including 47 for the school board and 70 for the school administrators

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