Data & Accountability
Data & Accountability
From test scores to teacher salaries, from graduation rates to grade-point averages, the education world is full of data. The federal No Child Left Behind law, signed in 2002, created an unprecedented demand for detailed information about students and schools. No longer are public schools judged simply by average test scores for all students. The law requires states, school districts and campuses to break out (“disaggregate,” in education-speak) test scores by race, gender, English proficiency, socioeconomic status and more. Students in every group must meet the same academic standards.At the same time, people want to know which individual teachers have the most success working with various groups of students.
The demand for data is growing in higher education, too. Parents, policymakers and taxpayers want to know which college freshmen need remedial education. They want to know how many students graduate on time, and whether graduates find good jobs. In both K-12 and higher education, some political leaders and others want to track academic performance with spending to see which schools and colleges seem to provide the best bang for the academic buck. This Topics section examines what this proliferation of data means for education reporters and offers links to key data resources.
This national push for accountability in education means that schools and colleges must first collect lots of useful, timely and precise data. Then, they must analyze and use that data – that is, make good decisions based on evidence — all with an eye toward improving student success.
Here’s how Jeffrey Wayman, assistant professor of education at the University of Texas at Austin, describes the goal on his Data Use website: “If offered in a useful form, such data can help teachers, principals and other educational personnel learn more about their students, improve their teaching craft, and ultimately impact a variety of educational outcomes.”
When the Data Quality Campaign, a national coalition advocating for better data, formed in 2005, no states had extensive longitudinal databases for education. The campaign created “10 essential elements” it deemed the state data systems should have. By 2011, the group reported that 49 states (all but Montana) have eight or more of the elements. Now the group is focusing on what states should do with all of that data.
Aimee Guidera, the campaign’s executive director, says: “The need is urgent: state policymakers need to allocate scarce resources based on what works to help students, and they cannot do that without data.”
Sources of data
Federal, state and local agencies now keep a wealth of education data. At the federal level, one of the best sources is the National Center for Education Statistics, part of the U.S. Department of Education. The center publishes annual reports (namely the Condition of Education and the Digest of Education Statistics) with state and national education trends on student enrollment and demographics, school staffing, education funding, graduation and dropout rates, and much more. The center also keeps searchable and downloadable databases, such as the Common Core of Data (for K-12 education) and the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (for higher ed). While the information at NCES is comprehensive, it’s also often dated, lagging two years behind.
State education agencies also offer a trove of data on student achievement (test scores from state exams, SATs, ACTs, Advanced Placement), graduation and dropout rates, student demographics, school funding, teacher salaries and staffing levels, and more. Some states put many databases online so they’re easily downloaded, while other states may not readily post such information — and that means reporters will need to specifically request it.
School districts also keep data on student test scores, employee salaries, budgets and the like. Again, the type and availability of information vary by district.
Keep in mind that federal privacy laws, namely the Family Educational Rights & Privacy Act (FERPA), restricts disclosure of individual student education records. In practical terms, that means a journalist can’t ask a school district or state agency for a list of student names with their race, gender and test scores. But a journalist can ask for student-level data with all identifying information (names, social security numbers, etc.) removed. Depending on the state, education agencies may even redact information in particular for small subgroups of students (for instance, test scores for the only four white, female students in a school, under the theory someone could still deduce the individual students’ scores).
Controversies, challenges and caveats
As schools and education agencies are able to collect powerful data, and they’re able to analyze it with more sophisticated tools, controversies have risen. Some school systems around the country rate teachers based on how much academic growth students made while in their classrooms. These “value-added” models look at which teachers are the most (and least) effective with their students by these measures. Some education leaders want to tie teacher pay or raises to their students’ academic growth, instead of compensating them solely on their education credentials and years of experience. Skeptics say the value-added models have too much statistical error to rate individual teachers accurately.
There can be other problems with education data. If students or their teachers cheat on state exams, the test scores (and everything they’re based on, such as state academic ratings) become meaningless. If schools don’t accurately report the reasons students leave school, then dropout and graduation rates aren’t accurate. Some colleges have been accused of reporting false or exaggerated data to U.S. News & World Report so they do better in the magazine’s annual college rankings. Journalists, and anyone else who uses data, need to ask questions about data when they see red flags.
With so much emphasis on data, some experts advise that journalists, policy makers and others should also examine things that can’t be easily measured — classroom observations of students and teachers, portfolios of student work, parent involvement, and school culture. And we don’t have sufficient data for all students, such as those who are exempt from state exams, or part-time college students who don’t count in the official graduation rates.
In the classroom, meanwhile, educators face the challenge of taking all of the data on students and using it well. The research isn’t yet extensive on the use of data to improve instruction or make decisions about teachers or students, but the research that is available shows that districts need to offer extensive training to principals and teachers to make the data useful. If educators don’t receive the training, they won’t use the data.
“The greatest perceived area of need among districts is for models of how to connect student data to instructional practice,” a U.S. Department of Education study found in 2010. “Districts want examples of how to identify which practices work best for which students and how to adapt instructional strategies to meet the needs of individual students.”
Where Is Your State Hiding Vital Education Data?
Dakarai Aarons and Elizabeth Dabney of Data Quality Campaign will identify the various state and local government agencies storing education data that are vital for your reporting. In many states, the state school board, department of education, mayor’s office, higher-education advisory board, and other agencies keep useful public information – and it’s on the reporter to know where to look.
OECD Report: U.S. Teens ‘Lack Financial Savvy’
In a new report comparing financial literacy skills among 15-year-olds in 18 countries, U.S. students scored in the middle of the pack on basic questions about savings, bank accounts and credit/debit cards, and weighing risks and rewards in deciding how to spend their dollars.
Which Education Research Is Worth the Hype?
Education reporters may have the power of the pen, but when it comes to navigating the complex methods of research studies, we may feel powerless. As researchers churn out report after report, how can journalists on deadline figure out which studies are worth covering?
Reporter’s Guide to Research: Getting Smart About Education Studies
Academic research can serve up some of the most original and meaningful stories journalists could hope to cover, if only we know where to look. But Holly Yettick, a reporter-turned-researcher at the University of Colorado-Denver, says hardly anyone in the news business today is writing about the latest research on schools. In one of the conference’s first sessions, Yettick shared her tips for finding good studies to write about and writing about them without overselling the results.
Turning Attention to Teacher Turnover
Many teachers — especially those in high-poverty urban and rural schools — say goodbye to the classroom by their fifth year on the job. While views vary on how serious a toll teacher turnover takes on U.S. schools, mitigating its downsides is a widely shared goal.
Three Stories Hidden in OECD Survey of U.S. Teachers
The nation’s public school teachers love their jobs, despite feeling underappreciated by society and facing enormous challenges in the workplace, according to a new international survey of educators.
Student Data Privacy: Politics and Practicalities
One of the most contentious topics in education news today may also one of the least understood: student data policy.
People who want to tighten laws and procedures around sharing student data with online learning providers say they students are being targeted by advertisers and others with nefarious intent. Those who want to use student information to customize their learning online say the worries are exaggerated and proposed laws will get in the way of personalized student learning.
Survey Evaluates Latino Student Engagement
A survey of Latino residents in Montgomery County, Maryland, reveals their attitudes toward education.
The Washington Post reported that the survey attributed high dropout rates to a variety of factors. The survey focused on Latinos ages 14 to 24.
The survey found:
Standing Out On Social Media
Today’s post features guest blogger Michelle Gininger, media relations and outreach manager at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, who attended EWA’s National Seminar at Vanderbilt University in Nashville last month.
Are you ready to take your social-media initiatives to a new level? Do you want to get beyond the “press release” tweet and the “come to our event” Facebook post?
Diving Into Data Workshop
Data journalism is more than just reporting on numbers. It’s taking the records of a half-million students and uncovering alarming absentee rates. It’s tracking the attrition of students from neighborhood schools.
Researchers: Students’ Self-Perceptions Factor Into Their Achievement
At EWA’s 67th National Seminar at Vanderbilt University last month, we took a “deep dive” into the impact of noncognitive factors on student learning. This is the first of three guest posts from that session. Parts II and III will follow.
Common Core: Angles on Assessments
The current generation of assessments being taken by students across the country is something like a bad boyfriend.
That’s according to Jacqueline King of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, who made the point at EWA’s National Seminar held last month at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. When a better guy (or test) comes along, she continued, it’s hard to take it seriously.
Brown at 60: Great Progress, a Long Retreat and an Uncertain Future
Marking the 60th anniversary of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v Board of Education, the UCLA’s Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles assessed the nation’s progress in addressing school segregation, and found that–contrary to many claims–the South has not gone back to the level of segregation before Brown. It has, however, lost all of the additional progress made after l967, but is still the least segregated region for black students. New statistics show a vast transformation of the nation’s school population since the civil rights era.
U.S. Students and PISA: How Much Do International Rankings Matter?
EWA’s 67th National Seminar starts Sunday at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, which makes this a great time to catch up on your background reading for some of the sessions. Some of the issues we’ll be talking about is how education reporters can better use student data in their stories, and the finer points of comparing achievement by U.S. students and their international counterparts. For background reading, here’s my post from December on the international PISA assessment.
Linking 12th Grade NAEP Scores to College Success
Since 2005, U.S. high school seniors have made slight gains in both their reading and math skills, according to new data released by the U.S. Department of Education. But progress has flatlined since 2009, reading scores are lower than they were in 1992, and significant achievement gaps also remain.
Nation’s Report Card: When Test Scores Don’t Count, Do Students Really Try?
Reading and math scores for the nation’s 12th graders have stagnated since 2009, according to new data published today, prompting U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to urge for an overhaul of the nation’s high school model and amplified efforts to narrow the achievement gap for minority students.
The Highs and Lows of High School Graduation Rates
Amid the excitement over the news this week that the nation’s high school graduation rate has hit 80 percent for the first time, some important questions still need to be answered. Among them: What are the states that saw the largest gains doing right, and how can the momentum be ramped up to make sure more minority, special education, and low-income students earn their diplomas?
High School Graduation Rates Improve Slightly
New data shows that the four-year high school graduation rates of Latino students are steadily increasing, but still lag the national average.
The newly released report from the National Center for Education Statistics examined four-year rates in 2010-11 and 2011-12. Between those graduation years the rate rose for all students from 79 percent to 80 percent.
The rate for Latino students rose from 71 percent in 2010-11 to 73 percent in 2011-12.
The Effect of ESEA Waiver Plans on High School Graduation Rate Accountability
Based on an extensive analysis of state waiver plans, this report shows that recent progress in holding schools accountable for how many students they graduate from high school—the ultimate goal of K–12 education—may be slowed in some states based on waivers recently granted under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), currently known as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). The report includes a review of approved waiver plans submitted by thirty-four states and the District of Columbia.
Public High School Four-Year On-Time Graduation Rates and Event Dropout Rates
School Years 2010–11 and 2011–12
This report includes four-year on-time graduation rates and dropout rates for school years 2010-11 and 2011-12. A four-year on-time graduation rate provides measure of the percent of students that successfully complete high school in four years with a regular high school diploma.
American Statistical Association Statement on Value-Added Models
Use of VAM for Educational Assessment
Many states and school districts have adopted Value-Added Models (VAMs) as part of educational accountability systems. The goal of these models, which are also referred to as Value-Added Assessment (VAA) Models, is to estimate
effects of individual teachers or schools on student achievement while accounting for differences in student background. VAMs are increasingly promoted or mandated as a component in high-stakes decisions such as determining
compensation, evaluating and ranking teachers, hiring or dismissing teachers, awarding tenure, and closing schools.
Early Learning: Kindergarten Online Database
State-by-State Policies and Requirements
Kindergarten entrance age
In half of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia, students must turn age 5 by the end of September to attend kindergarten.
Nineteen states requires students to turn age 5 on or before Sept. 1.
Kindergarten attendance requirement
Fifteen states plus D.C. require children to attend kindergarten at age five or require kindergarten attendance prior to enrolling in first grade.
Thirty-five states do not require kindergarten attendance.
Compulsory school age
Big Data Can Mean Big Dilemmas for Student Privacy
The Department of Education amended federal student privacy laws to loosen restrictions on sharing the information, but that doesn’t mean it’s always easy for journalists to get access.
Brown Center Report: Common Core, Homework and Shanghai’s Success
The third installment of the Brown Center Report on Public Education is out from the Brookings Institution, and author Tom Loveless provides plenty of food for thought in three key areas: the potential effectiveness of the new Common Core State Standards; whether American students are being saddled with significantly more homework; and an examination of Shanghai’s reputation for producing some of the best 15-year-old math students in the world.
How Much Does College Really Cost?
Our March 10 webinar gave reporters an inside look at EWA’s new net price tool.
SXSWedu: Education Ideas ‘Big and Bright’ in Austin
I’m in Austin for the next few days at the SXSWedu conference, which will bring together big thinkers, educators, and entrepreneurs to talk about latest philosophies, approaches, and technology reshaping the business of schooling. I’ve packed my boots, my trendy glasses, and plenty of extra notebooks that I fully expect to fill up with Big Ideas.
States That Spend The Least On Students Set To Grow The Most
New projections on student enrollment from the federal government hint at the financial pressure many states will face as their student populations rise considerably in the next decade.
The data, released this week by the National Center on Education Statistics, forecast that the nation’s number of public school students from prekindergarten through high school will grow by 7 percent between 2011 and 2022. Leading the charge are states in the Western and Southern parts of the United States.
Kansas Rep. Wants to Track Students’ Immigration Status
A Kansas state representative wants to begin asking children who enroll in public schools for proof of citizenship or legal presence in the United States.
Republican Rep. Allan Rothlisberg said that he wants to track how much money is spent on educating undocumented immigrants.
Even if he is successful, the 1982 Plyler v. Doe decision concluded that all children are entitled to a free public education, no matter their status. Rothlisberg said he is aware that schools must follow the law.
College Board Releases AP Report to the Nation
The percentage of Latinos graduating in the high school class of 2013 matched the percentage of Latino test-takers that year, according to the 10th Annual AP Report to the Nation.
The percentage of Latino graduates and test-takers was about 18.8 percent. Latinos made up about 16.9 percent of students scoring a 3 or higher (generally seen as “passing”) on the exam.
Beyond Teachers: Who Else Is Your District Employing?
You may know that teachers make up roughly half of the education staff in school districts, but who are the other employees on the rolls? To provide a clearer picture, I broke down data from the U.S. Department of Education on district staffing to visualize this often-overlooked slice of the workforce.
Immense Unease Over Advertisers Nabbing Student Data: Poll
The poll found that while only 37 percent of the public has “seen, read, or heard” “some” or “a great deal” about schools collecting, storing and sharing information, including age, weight and grades, 90 percent are “somewhat” or “very” concerned about private companies having access to student data.
Using Polls in Education Reporting
Polling isn’t exclusively the province of political reporters. A handful of national surveys released each year focus on education, including the Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup poll about public attitudes toward education and MetLife’s annual survey of teachers. There’s also often polling done for statewide education-related elections, such as ballot measures or state superintendent races, and, periodically, by news outlets and advocacy organizations on various education-related issues.
Student Privacy: Lost in the Cloud?
As more school districts share data with parents and teachers, privacy advocates warn that they run the risk of violating students’ privacy.
Education Longitudinal Study of 2002: A First Look at 2002 High School Sophomores 10 Years Later
This First Look presents findings from the third, and final, follow-up survey of the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002). ELS:2002 provides a wealth of information from multiple sources (tested achievement, questionnaire, and administrative records) about the factors and circumstances related to the performance and social development of the American high school student over time. This report draws on ELS:2002 data collected in 2012 to describe the outcomes of the cohort at about age 26, approximately 10 years after they were high school sophomores.
Today: EWA Webinar on Student Data and Privacy
As more school districts share data with parents and teachers, privacy advocates warn that they run the risk of violating students’ privacy. How big of a concern is it? Should parental rights trump educators’ efforts to track students? What should the federal role be?
‘Nation’s Report Card:’ Urban Districts Making Long-Range Gains
Results are out for the 21 urban school districts that participate in the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as “The Nation’s Report Card,” and there are encouraging 10-year trends of overall improvement in reading and math in grades 4 and 8.At the same time, gaps persist among students from low-income families and their more affluent peers, for English language learners, and for many minority students when compared with their Asian and white classmates.(For a breakdown of the results, <a href=”http
Students in Large Cities Improving Academically
Fourth and eighth graders in the country’s largest school districts have improved their mastery of difficult math and English concepts over the past decade but are still behind their peers nationally, according to new federal data.
Research Lacking on Benefits of Staying in School Longer
Dropout prevention is one of the holy grails in U.S. education policy, and for good reason. Stick around long enough to earn a diploma, and you’re instantly more likely to have a job, rely less on government subsistence and even make the leap to postsecondary learning.
U.S. Students and PISA: Same As It Ever Was
There’s been little or no change in the performance of U.S. students on the latest round of the international PISA assessment, with stagnant scores in reading, mathematics, and science. With other countries pulling away at the head of the pack, America saw its overall ranking slip.
Bracing for PISA: How Do U.S. Students Compare Internationally?
The latest results of PISA — an international assessment often used to compare the quality of the nation’s public schools against other developed countries — will be released Tuesday. That makes today the day to keep one particular word in mind: perspective.
States Ramping Up Student Data Systems
Global View: Questions to Ask About PISA 2012
How will the U.S. fare against other countries when the results from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 are released on Dec. 3?
20 Years Later, U.S. Students Making Big Academic Gains
If rising student proficiency is the hallmark of an improving education system, the nation’s schools have something to brag about: A new government report shows fourth and eighth graders since 1990 have made major gains in how well they understand challenging concepts in mathematics while also making modest gains in reading.
The Nation’s Report Card: A Slow Climb Up a Steep Hill
The “Nation’s Report Card” is out today for fourth and eighth graders in reading and math, and while there are some positive trends over the past two decades, a significant achievement gap persists among minorities and for America’s students when compared with their peers internationally.
Ten Takeaways on Where States Stand on Common Core
An intensive survey of state officials by the Center on Education Policy offers insight into the challenges facing states as they implement Common Core State Standards.
Topics covered include how states are working with higher education institutions, gearing up for assessments, and preparing teachers and principals for the transition.
Speakers: Diane Stark Rentner, Center for Education Policy; Maria Voles Ferguson, Center on Education Policy; Caroline Hendrie, Education Writers Association (moderator)
Shelf space for books at home predicts educational outcomes
A fascinating blog post, “Does Poverty Cause Low Achievement?“, by Richard Rothstein of the Economic Policy Institute cautions researchers against using poverty or family income when crunching numbers to come up with education policies. He argues that poverty in and of itself doesn’t cause low achievement. And flawed educational research conclusions have been made by using poverty in data analyses.
Study: U.S. Workers Behind in Skills, Smarts
The U.S. labor force lags behind other rich countries in smarts and work skills, according to a study that measured the cognitive and verbal abilities of adults in 23 nations.
New Polls Show Americans Frustrated With State of Education
At 9 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 21, EWA’s Emily Richmond talks with Phi Delta Kappa’s Bill Bushaw about a new Gallup/PDK poll on attitudes toward public education. Watch it here!
The PDK/Gallup poll generated some media buzz, and when viewed alongside two other education polls released this week, reveals a populace that has an ambivalent view on the state of U.S. schools.
Catch up with news coverage of the polls’ results and responses from stakeholders below:
Gallup Poll Finds More Confusion Over Common Core
I spoke with Bill Bushaw, executive director of Phi Delta Kappa, about the new PDK/Gallup poll findings.
Mine the Gap: Working with Data on Access to Opportunities
67 minutes
How equitable is education in your school districts? Do low-income and minority students have the same access to advanced math and science classes, or Advanced Placement courses? Are teachers in low-income schools veterans or new teachers?
Background Reading for “Mine the Gap: Working with Data on Access to Opportunity”
K-12 Opportunity Gaps and Out-of-School Factors, The Educated Reporter:
Government Report Suggests Racial Achievement Gap Narrowing
A new national study conducted by the federal government shows the achievement gap between white students and minorities has narrowed among nine and 13 year-olds since the 1970s, yet has remained mostly flat among 17 year-olds.
Released by the makers of the gold standard of student assessments, National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP), the newly published findings are part of an ongoing study that measure students’ understanding of mathematics and reading.
Below is a sampling of the press coverage.
School’s (Still) In: Making the Most of Summer Learning
1 hour
While students are celebrating the start of the long summer break, there’s a significant tradeoff for the three months of leisure – on average, students will return to school in the fall a month behind where they performed in the spring. And the learning loss is even greater for low-income students who were already behind their more affluent peers. In this EWA Webinar, we examine how districts are successfully combating summer learning loss with high-quality programs and leveraging community partnerships to help pay for them.
Education at a Glance 2013: EWA/OECD Webinar
55 minutes
How much of the U.S. gross domestic product is spent on education? How does that education spending break down for early childhood education, K-12 education and higher education? How much private spending is dedicated to education, compared to public spending? What is the link between higher education degrees and unemployment rates in the U.S. and other countries?
Technology Counts 2013: Building the Digital District
Technology Counts 2013—the 16th edition of Education Week’s annual report on educational technology—tackles how school districts are working to incorporate more multimedia into classrooms, upgrade online professional development, and do a better job using data to improve student achievement.
Diving into Data: Requesting (and Analyzing) Public School Numbers
53 minutes
After you’ve filed your back-to-school stories, get ready make waves with some hard-hitting, data-based reporting this academic year. If you’ve never parsed test scores, attendance numbers or graduation rates, this webinar is a great place to start.
Jack Gillum, an investigative reporter with the Associated Press, offers tips on how to use data to enhance your reporting; find the information to get you started; and identify newsworthy trends in the numbers. Gillum contributed to an award-winning 2011 USA Today series on suspicious student test score gains in Washington, D.C.
Follow the Money: What’s Hiding In Your School District’s Spending?
56 minutes
So you’ve managed to get your hands on all the records your school district keeps about its budget and spending. Now what? How can you turn a giant data dump into a compelling story for your readers?
In this EWA webinar, you’ll hear how reporters at the Dallas Morning News used public records to create databases of district spending and budget information, and how they used those databases to uncover everything from fraud and mismanagement to cozy vendor-employee relationships to the misuse of federal grants.
Summer Idyll — or Idle? Story Ideas for Journalists
58 Minutes
All over the country, the year’s last school bell is ringing. But now that it’s time for pool parties and summer camp, what happens to the knowledge students gained during the school year?
Gary Huggins of National Summer Learning Association; Kathleen Manzo of Education Week; and Katy Murphy of the Oakland Tribune talk about how reporters can examine summer learning loss and how to tell when schools and communities offer effective summer school.
Change in the Windy City: A Chicago Perspective
What lessons can be learned from the push to turn around schools in the nation’s third-largest school district? What is the union’s role in the efforts? Are classroom teachers noticing a chance in their school environment or in student achievement?
Making Inroads at Low-Performing Schools: What the Data Tell Us
Marisa de la Torre, associate director for professional development, University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research, discusses recent data examining school turnarounds in the nation’s third-largest school district. Recorded at EWA’s March 24, 2012 seminar fon school turnarounds at the University of Chicago.
Mining the Data: What States Have and Where to Find It
58 minutes
Elizabeth Laird, Director of Communications and External Affairs for the Data Quality Campaign, provides an update on states’ progress toward collecting and using education data and reveals the type of data and related reports available from your states. She’ll especially concentrate on linking K-12 and postsecondary data to explore issues like college and career readiness, college remediation, and other topics.
Do the Math: Outsmarting Statistics
No one ever entered the journalism profession to crunch numbers, but dealing with data is a crucial part of the education beat. Holly Hacker, statistics guru and education reporter for the Dallas Morning News, shows you the basics for understanding how to effectively report on statistics.
Behind the Numbers: What the SAT Scores Really Say
49 minutes
States love to brag when their SAT scores go up, and are quick to offer reasons why they went down. How can reporters see through the spin and put their states in context?
Holly Hacker, education reporter and stats guru at the Dallas Morning News, explains some basic statistical concepts using state SAT scores, showing you the biggest force driving those scores to help effectively and fairly compare your state with all the others.
While this webinar is focused on the SAT, these techniques are applicable to many other education issues.
EWA Interview: UCLA’s John Pryor on the CIRP Freshman Survey
How can higher education reporters use CIRP survey data in their stories? How are educational institutions using the information? John Pryor, director of CIRP at UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute, gives guidance in this interview conducted at EWA’s Higher Education Seminar on Nov. 4-5 at UCLA.
Tuesday Round-Up: Remediation, Civil Rights and NAEP
The New York Times’ Michael Winerip has a hugely effective column in Monday’s paper, about a spike in remediation rates among community college students. This is an issue that doesn’t get enough attention, despite being a central plank on the bridge from K-12 to higher education.
Is High School Making Your Kids College-Ready?
EWA 2010 National Reporting Contest winner. Even the most posh suburban high schools in the Chicago area missed the mark on preparing college-bound students for the rigors of academics in higher education.
Student Data Too Often a Tangled Web for Schools, Report Says
Schools are flooded with data these days, but students, parents, teachers, and administrators often lack the ability to make use of it because the systems for collecting, storing, and analyzing that information don’t mesh with each other, many officials who work with, or in, K-12 education say.
Word on the Beat: Assessments
As a regular feature, The Educated Reporter features a buzzword or phrase that You Need To Know (yes, this designation is highly subjective but we’re giving it a shot). Send your Word on the Beat suggestions to erichmond@ewa.org.
Word on the beat: Assessments
States’ K-12 Test Security Policies and Procedures Varied
According to GAO’s nationwide survey of state testing directors, all states reported that their policies and procedures included 50 percent or more of the leading practices to prevent test irregularities in the following five areas—security plans, security training, security breaches, test administration and protecting secure materials.
Michael & Susan Dell Foundation
Michael & Susan Dell Foundation focuses on performance-driven education as one of its key goals and has funded efforts in school districts and charter management organizations across the country. As part of that, the foundation commissioned several case studies, including one on the Denver Public Schools District and the other on Charlotte Mecklenburg.
Data Wise Project
Data Wise Project is an effort based at the Harvard Graduate School of Education that helps develop resources for educators on how to effectively use data. Data Wise provides online training as well as an annual training summit at the school.
Data Use for Improving Learning
Data Use for Improving Learning is a website operated by UCLA’s National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing (CRESST) to look at the effective use of data to improve learning. The site offers current research and guidelines for educators.
DATA Use
DATA Use is a new website created by University of Texas professor Jeffrey C. Wayman, who researches data-driven decision making by school districts and what it takes to make districts effective users of data. His new project, “the Data Informed District,” is examining the work of three districts in central Texas. He will develop a framework based on the research this year (2012).
Data Quality Campaign
Data Quality Campaign is a national coalition that has pushed for better data in education. It keeps a list of “10 essential elements” that every state education data system should have — including student-level information on test scores and demographics (such as race, gender and socioeconomic status); a unique identifier assigned to students so they can be followed over time; and the ability to match individual teachers to their students.
Consortium for School Networking (CoSN)
Consortium for School Networking’s Data-Driven Decision Making (3D) Initiative is a national effort to help school district technology leaders build and sustain a data culture within their districts. It is designed to provide tools and resources to help districts implement and sustain data usage while providing a national forum on how data are being used to individualize the learning process.
The Center for Data-Driven Reform in Education
The Center for Data-Driven Reform in Education is based at Johns Hopkins University and conducts training as well as provides a model, Raising the Bar, for data-driven instruction. Note that the organization is affiliated with the Center for Research and Reform in Education and Robert Slavin.
School Officials Changed Grades from Failing to Passing
Students went home for the summer on June 2. Teachers closed out the 2010-11 school year the next day. And over the next week at Linden-McKinley STEM Academy, thousands of pieces of student data — including grades — were changed.
New MetLife Survey: Teacher Job Satisfaction Hits 25-Year Low
A new survey paints a troubling portrait of the American educator: Teacher job satisfaction has hit its lowest point in a quarter of a century, and 75 percent of principals believe their jobs have become too complex.
The findings are part of the MetLife Survey of the American Teacher: Challenges for School Leadership. Conducted annually since 1984, the survey polled representative sampling of 1,000 teachers and 500 principals in K-12 schools across the country.
Relax, It’s Only a Test
In the 12 years since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act, frequent high-stakes exams have become the norm at every public school in every state in the country. Standardized testing programs cost states a total of $1.7 billion yearly, according to a recent report from the Brookings Institution. Poor performances on these exams can have severe consequences: students with low scores can be held back, teachers whose students do poorly can be fired, and schools with below-average overall results can be closed entirely.
Digital Learning Day: Classroom Technology That’s Making a Difference
Today is the second annual Digital Learning Day, intended to highlight the best practices and brightest ideas for incorporating technology effectively into the nation’s classrooms.
Teachers’ Ratings Still High Despite New Measures
Changes to evaluation systems yield only subtle differences.
One-Stop Shop to Learn About Education Data
Data First was created with the idea that data matters. Education data, used well, can help school board members and everyone else who cares about education to make good decisions – ones based, not on the loudest voices or the latest theories, but on the facts about what students need and how they are currently doing. The Data First site is designed to link visitors to data they can use about schools, and to teach them how to use it better
The Opportunity Gap
This database includes all public schools in districts with more than 3,000 students from the 2009-2010 school year — about three-quarters of all such students in the country. Use it to find out how well your state provides poor and wealthier schools equal access to advanced classes that researchers say will help them later in life.
Colleges Overproducing Elementary Teachers, Data Find
Data, while imprecise, suggest that some states are producing far more new teachers at the elementary level than will be able to find jobs in their respective states—even as districts struggle to find enough recruits in other certification fields.
For some observers, the imbalances reflect a failure of teacher colleges—by far, the largest source of new teachers—and their regulatory agencies to cap the number of entrants.
The history of school closings in Chicago 2002-12
WBEZ plotted annual school closings and schools “turned around” since the 2001-02 school year when CPS began shuttering schools as a reform strategy. This sortable chart and map shows where schools have been closed or turned around (where the staff is completely replaced but students remain), what’s become of the old buildings and how well the new schools in those buildings are performing. The chart includes updated performance data from the 2011-12 school year.
Ensuring Fair and Reliable Measures of Effective Teaching
This non-technical research brief for policymakers and practitioners summarizes recent analyses from the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project on identifying effective teaching while accounting for differences among teachers’ students, on combining measures into composites, and on assuring reliable classroom observations. (Editor’s note: The study was part of a three-year, $50 million project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that included dozens of researchers and over 3,000 teachers who volunteered.
Louisiana’s educators enter a new world with evaluations and their consequences
Teachers in Louisiana have all but lost the tenure rules that once protected their jobs. Beginning this year, all 50,000 of them will be evaluated and ranked on an annual basis, often with test scores factoring in heavily. Soon, consistently “ineffective” teachers will no longer be welcome in the classroom. This, depending on one’s point of view, is either the latest assault on Louisiana’s educators or an urgent step toward modernizing the teaching profession and lifting the state out of academic mediocrity.
Vocabulary Test Results Show Top U.S. Students Losing Ground, Others Stagnate
If you can identify the meaning of the word “prospered” within a passage, chances are you know more vocabulary than most American high school seniors.
The results of the national standardized vocabulary tests are in, and the scores are troubling — but not unexpected — experts say. Average performance on the U.S. Education Department’s national exams was mostly stagnant at low levels between 2009 and 2011, and the highest performers lost ground during that time.
Statistical Significance
Data have been increasingly incorporated into education practice and the increasing reliance on standardized tests is increasing the amount of data for educators to analyze. But the overwhelming data are leaving many unable to figure out how to use them.
Strength in Numbers: State Spending on K-12 Assessment Systems
The report identifies state collaboration on assessments as a clear strategy for achieving cost savings without compromising test quality. For example, a state with 100,000 students that joins a consortium of states containing one million students is predicted to save 37 percent, or $1.4 million per year; a state of 500,000 students saves an estimated 25 percent, or $3.9 million, by joining the same consortium. Collaborating to form assessment consortia is the strategy being pursued by nearly all of the states that have adopted the Common Core standards.
School Testing In U.S. Costs $1.7 Billion, But That May Not Be Enough: Report
Matt Chingos has an idea that will likely roil the scores of parents and teachers who think the U.S. tests its students too much: we might actually spend too little on standardized testing.
In a report released Thursday titled “State Spending on K-12 Assessments,” Chingos, a fellow at the Brookings Institute, tallied up the cost of standardized testing, a subject that has fueled much debate and speculation. After sending out countless Freedom of Information Act requests and rummaging through boxes of documents, he arrived at an estimate of $1.7 billion.
State Falls Short on School Desegregation Requirements
Connecticut has run out of time to comply with a court order to reduce the inequities caused by the segregation of Hartford’s largely black and Hispanic school population. The state Department of Education on Thursday afternoon reported that 37 percent of Hartford students are now attending integrated schools — 4 percent shy of the number the state agreed to reach in a settlement five years ago.
Mississippi School Funding Shortfalls Could Trigger Even Lower Target
Based on the expenditures in the mid-range districts, an average cost per student is developed. Local school districts statewide are supposed to receive that average cost per student multiplied by their average daily attendance.
San Jose Unified, teachers reach breakthrough evaluation, pay plan
The superintendent of San Jose Unified and leaders of the district’s teachers union have agreed on an innovative evaluation and compensation system that, if implemented, would be significantly different from any in California. With education groups in Sacramento and legislators still bruised over a grueling, failed effort to revise the state’s teacher evaluation law last summer, the San Jose plan offers hope that a progressive compromise on divisive issues is possible.
More Cheating Scandals Inevitable, as States Can’t Ensure Test Integrity
The AJC’s survey of the 50 state education departments found that many states do not use basic test security measures designed to stop cheating on tests. And most states make almost no attempt to screen test results for irregularities.
State Reported Inflated Rate of Teachers Lacking Credentials
The percentage of teachers and other certificated staff lacking proper credentials was actually 29 percent, not the 58 percent the state reported for the 2005-06 school year. The revelation, sparked by errors in state data identified by California Watch, means the state has been using an incorrect baseline as it measures progress at its lowest-performing schools.
Why Kids Should Grade Teachers
A decade ago, an economist at Harvard, Ronald Ferguson, wondered what would happen if teachers were evaluated by the people who see them every day—their students. The idea—as simple as it sounds, and as familiar as it is on college campuses—was revolutionary. And the results seemed to be, too: remarkable consistency from grade to grade, and across racial divides. Even among kindergarten students. A growing number of school systems are administering the surveys—and might be able to overcome teacher resistance in order to link results to salaries and promotions.
Education at a Glance 2012: OECD Indicators
The 2012 edition of Education at a Glance enables countries to see themselves in the light of other countries’ educational performance.
Everything You’ve Heard About Failing Schools Is Wrong
Attendance: up. Dropout rates: plummeting. College acceptance: through the roof. My mind-blowing year inside a “low-performing” school.
Teaching the Teachers
The Hechinger Report is investigating how professional-development funds are spent in the country’s largest school system—New York City—as well as in other districts around the nation to see what we can learn from schools, districts and countries that excel at ongoing teacher training.
Districts Use Data to Sharpen Focus in Class
Omaha Public Schools spent millions launching a computer system to help teachers provide data-driven instruction. But some teachers haven’t embraced it, and others say they aren’t fully trained in how to use it. And still other educators say that while they’re able to diagnose where students need help, they need more assistance in developing alternative strategies.
Can Education Data Build the Perfect Teacher?
Can administrators, policymakers and educators use objective data to create the perfect learning experience?
The Class of 2020
EWA 2012 National Reporting Contest winner. Longitudinal studies tend to tell us the most about student progress, but the reports can be dense and difficult to access. This series takes on the task of following the same group of students for 13 years until they graduate from high school.
Can Education Be ‘Moneyball’-ed?
Data analysis is so trendy these days that Brad Pitt is getting millions of people to sit through a movie about quantitative methodology called Moneyball, writes Eduwonk blogger Andy Rotherham. A lot of education reformers are calling for a similar approach to improve student performance but there are some significant strikes against a Moneyball approach to education, he says.
Impact of Data-Driven Reform on Mathematics and Reading Achievement
This study may be the first large-scale randomized assignment study looking at data-driven instruction and its effect on student learning. The study looked at 500 schools in 59 districts to estimate the effects of a project by the Johns Hopkins Center for Data-Driven Reform in Education. The study looks at the first year.
Spotlight on Data-Driven Decision Making
Education Week focused on data-driven decision making in nine articles over 2010 and 2011, looking at issues around mining the data to improve instruction, better use of data to prevent dropouts, implementing the technology and managing student privacy, among other topics.
Data-Driven Instruction and the Practice of Teaching
Prominent education researcher Larry Cuban writes a column offering a skeptical view of the move toward data-driven instruction
Organizational Considerations in Educational Data Use
Effective data use by U.S. schools is proving to be a vexing problem. Researchers in this paper suggest ways that schools and districts can use data for educational improvement. They discuss three organizational areas in which these districts may improve: establishing common understandings, professional learning for using data, and computer data systems.
Building a Better Teacher
EWA 2010 National Reporting Contest winner. From the series description: “In a series appearing over eight Sundays, ‘Building a Better Teacher’ looked at challenges to the way teachers are trained, evaluated, paid, promoted and dismissed - and how all of it comes to bear on student success.”
The WRITE Stuff
Grant School District 3 in Oregon took full advantage of a new data-driven training program to improve its students’ test scores by using data to focus on trouble spots. Spelling errors by students shrank substantially thanks to the effort.
Untapped Resource: State Unlocks Data Storehouse for Teachers
Tennessee has kept detailed measurements of student achievement for nearly two decades but the data were off-limits to teachers, who still don’t know exactly how to use it to improve instruction.
The ABCs of Ditching School
EWA 2010 National Reporting Contest winner. Studies increasingly show chronic truancy is a telltale sign that a student is on the road to dropping out of school. So what can schools do about it? This feature examines the sleight of hand students come up with to play hooky, and the steps schools could take to combat the high rates of ditching class.
Culture of Data Evolves in Fulton Schools
The Fulton County, Ga., public school system is well-known for its data-driven decision making and management system. In fact, it’s been lauded by experts for its techniques. It took the district 10 years to get there.
Using Student Data to Support Instructional Decision-Making
The Institute for Educational Sciences provided a guide for educators on the best research available on data-driven decision-making and instruction. The report highlights findings with strong evidence as well as findings where the evidence is weak.
Beyond Test Scores: Leading Indicators for Education
“Leading indicators” in education — as in economics — can provide early signs of progress toward academic achievement and thus help district leaders and other stakeholders make informed decisions about efforts to improve student learning.
Cutting Through the “Data-Driven” Mantra: Different Conceptions of Data-Driven Decision Making
The paper, a chapter in the Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, summarizes two RAND studies that address this question: What are the different ways educators use data to make decisions about teaching and learning? The study outlines factors that enabled – or inhibited – various types of data-based decision-making.
Making Sense of Data-Driven Decision Making in Education
RAND provides an “occasional paper” reviewing its research on data-driven decision making and clarifying what conclusions can be drawn. There remain many unanswered questions about the interpretation and use of data to inform decisions and the ultimate effect of those decisions.
‘Check In’ on Education Inequality
‘Check In’ on Education Inequality allows ProPublica readers to link their Foursquare account with the news outlet’s “Opportunity Gap” project. Users can get stats about a school when they check into it with their mobile device’s Foursquare app.