Data about how children are doing in school is a lot like the price of gasoline. The only meaningful data is the cost of gas at your local gas pump. Likewise, the only meaningful data about student learning are assessments at your local schools. National report cards are irrelevant and misleading. If we are to be data-based, we need to consider and use the right data. Stay local!
What do we know?
Everyday the media posts the average price of a gallon of gas on national and state and regional averages. For example, today AAA posted that the national retail price of a gallon of regular gas is $3.319. AAA says that the retail average for Wisconsin is $2.924 per gallon. I disregard these data because the gas prices are always higher in rural, northeastern Wisconsin. Today’s price in northern Door County is $3.37 per gallon. The price of gas depends on location.
The quality of education also depends on location. And the only location that matters is the quality of education in the school teaching your children. I always read educational data in this order – national, state, local school district. Then I consider the data in reverse order – district, state, nation. I do this because the only data that is meaningful and classroom-related is that of my local school district. National education policies and commitments are political not educational. While federal politicians lament the United States’ falling status internationally and the annual negative slope of reading and math scores nationally, their commitment to education is always partisan. Even though the US Constitution assigns responsibility for public education to state governments, national politicians consistently try to implement policies and programs to “ram” change into the 16,200+ school districts in our country. Their “carrot or stick” efforts are guided by political hubris and constantly prove futile.
Last week the 2024 NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) data were published. The latest NAEP assessment always reports data from the prior school year. NAEP assessments tell us that national student achievements in reading and math continue to decline. The data displays current scores compared to a decade of pre-pandemic scores and most recent post-pandemic scores. The graphs show a consistent decline in reading and math scores with a sharper tick downward after the COVID pandemic.
As expected, commentary about this week’s NAEP report once again asked what can be done to reverse the national data trend and strengthen student achievement in reading and mathematics. “We need to fix this problem,” our politicians said. However, the current administration’s work in dismantling the US Department of Education shows that all we will hear from Washington DC is an exaggeration of the “economic effects” of the reading/math score decline who to blame for it.
Policy and commitment to public education at the state level resembles national futility only at a smaller scale. Conservative statehouses are more willing to engage in legislating cellphone policy, book banning, and LGBTQ issues than discussing educational outcomes in their state’s schools. The ultimate truth about state responsibility for public education lies in the language of the state constitution. The Wisconsin State Constitution tells us there will be schools, schools will be mandated to teach core subjects to prepare graduates to become productive citizens, and responsibility for funding schools will be shared by the state and local school boards. There are many chapters and verses, but this is the gist of our state’s responsibility.
The policies of local school boards and their schools are where public education lives best and thrives.
Treat local educational data with care and commitment for improvement.
There is an interesting tipping point in school districts about their understanding of educational achievement data. If the school district is a large, urban district, the data becomes disoriented by the tens of thousands of students and the hundreds of teachers. Yet if the school district is a small, one building rural district, the data can be isolated to a classroom of students and an individual teacher. It is dangerous to draw conclusions about all schools in a large district and equally dangerous to drill too deeply in a small district.
However, conclusions want to be drawn. Always consider educational data clinically and from a respectable distance. The positive care and humaneness schools show about their data aids their future improvement; negativity gets in the way of improvement.
A healthy school board and district administration look at local educational data as indicators of school success not failure. Their assets-based approach says, “80 percent of third graders are reading at grade level and what can we do to raise that percentage?” An unhealthy approach focuses on the 20 percent reading below grade level and deficits that must be contributing to their lower achievement. A healthy approach assures and reassures that the reading program includes strong instruction and then extra instructional time for positive aid for below grade level readers. That approach does not ignore the learning needs of students who need more instruction in reading, nor does it trash can a reading program that causes 80% of the students to be successful readers. An unhealthy approach is sum-zero and takes time and resources from other curriculum just to bolster time and resources where deficits appear. To be Gump-like, positive, and healthy school leadership is as positive and healthy school leadership does. We want local school leadership to be healthy and positive in their data consideration while constructively working to improve educational programs for all children.
If annual data says that the annual achievement of students in reading is declining, constructive school leadership looks at all the data and considers it without knee jerking a response. Leaders disaggregate the data. They want to know for whom the program is and is not causing success and where and how separation between students who are successful and unsuccessful takes place. Knowing about that separation is essential for closing gaps in student learning performances. A decline in some students’ reading and math achievement does not happen overnight but over time, yet it always has a beginning and characteristics that begin a definition of successful and unsuccessful performances. This is how data can and should be used to improve education for all students and this careful and considered use of data only takes place at the local school level.
The consideration of local school performance data must be macroscopic as well as microscopic. Educational data about students in our community is not impersonal; these are our children. As we consider microscopic annual reading and math data, we also must consider the full profile of the educational programs for these children. Are they equally engaged in the school’s academic, activity, arts, and athletic programs? Are they growing in creative ways as well as performative ways? Are they well-adjusted and integrated as a student body without outliers? Are the school’s programs preparing all students for post-secondary college and career entry? Is the school creating an informed and prepared pathway into local citizenry? A macroscopic perspective allows school leaders better adjust reading and math programs, or any program that is not microscopically creating success for all students. Too often a look at data causes knee jerk responses that cause more harm to students than help.
The Big Duh!
The data about student reading and math achievement on a national level is an ongoing story that is always historical. The data tell us about what happened last year and in years past. Federal and state attempts to affect that data through line over all students and over time consistently have proven politically and educationally futile. As readers of national educational news, we should remember that the only data that matters is local data. Change in national trends will not be the result of action by federal or state governments, but only by careful and healthy consideration and use of data at the local school district level. Know your local data and help your local leaders to use it effectively.