- "You're entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts."
- "The need for group members to convince others of the "correct way" to see data, or solve a problem, creates tension and drains time and energy from group work."
Chapter 3 talks about a
big issue in education. When members are faced with data that presents
uncomfortable facts, it leads to unproductful conversations,
defesiveness, and resentment. For example, the topic of race and
achievement gaps that exist at Haley are often met with excuses or
reasons why groups of students are not performing. Another example
would be owning the data regardless of the results, but rather we choose
to own the positive and excuse away the negative. However, we as
educators should not be comfortable with any excuse, especially those
variables that we can improve ourselves. Instead, our conversations
usually focus on the variables we have no control over such as
socioeconomic status, parent involvement, and past educational
experiences.
I ask these questions for
reflection and comment, how do we begin to take our issues that we
realize through analyzing data, and form them as problems and questions?
Furthermore how do we take those hypothesis and begin to investigate
them further? How do we begin the work of developing action research
practices to improve the issues of concern?
I do not have a problem owning my data, but it is foolish to act as if data is produced in a vacuum and that it has no context to it. For example: I had four students who Did Not Pass the ELA portion of ISTEP+ this past year because each of them had a score that was less than 10 points away from the cut score. One student is not a good test taker; she gets too nervous, puts too much pressure on herself, and lacks any test taking confidence. One student--who lost all academic focus once football season ended--was one point away from passing. A third student's personality, especially with reading tests, rushes through his work because of the tremendous challenge it is for him to stay focused and because of how unpleasant he finds reading. The final student informed me the second week of the school year that he did not believe himself capable of passing ISTEP. (And, did you notice that I did not even mention anything about the bugaboos with testing that we experienced this spring, nor the fact that all fifth graders left for Camp the day after we completed ISTEP testing.)
ReplyDeleteI have not met a lot of teachers who do not take their data seriously. We can't afford not too. We know we have to, because scores are what is used by many who don't know the first thing about us or our students to make an instant decision about us as professionals. Here's my point: The percentage of students who passed ELA in my class last year is 72%. That number in no way informs anyone of how close it was to being 87%--had each of these four students gotten one to three more questions correct. The perception that many have of a teacher with a 72% passing rate is much different than that of a teacher with a 87% passing rate.
In addition, I had four students who did not pass any portion of the ISTEP test--ELA, Math, or Social Studies. Two of these students--a HIspanic male and a White male--were new to Haley this year and one--an African American male--moved to Haley in April of his fourth grade year. It was obvious to me that they had not received the quality and rigorous instruction that Haley's primary teachers give students. Now, as a school we have to "own" their data, but my question is: What 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th grade teacher(s) in the building had anything to do with it? In addition, I know that in the case of these three students not one of them passed ISTEP last year and none of them passed an Acuity test this past school year. Therefore, I must confess that it is very unclear to me how "not owning the data" is probably the reason why these three students did not pass.
Interesting side note: Of the four students who did not Pass any ISTEP portion, two of them were in Reading Intervention (and, I might add, Sondra Beard worked feverishly with them and got them reading on a fourth grade level by the end of the year. Sondra was the one who found out that one of the students moved in the middle of the school year because the house his family had been living in was CONDEMNED by the city!!). The third one was qualified for Reading Intervention, but Mr. White was informed in no uncertain terms by one of his parents that he was not going to be pulled for such instruction. The fourth one's data never qualified him for Reading Intervention. He began and finished the year in green on Dibels because he can read for short bursts and can orally retell wonderfully. What he has immense difficulties with is getting what he knows to go down his arm and through his pencil onto a piece of paper and in a legible fashion. It seems to me that in "owning" his data he was excluded from getting extra Reading instruction.
John, I agree with a lot of your points about the issues that fall outside of our "circle of influence" in regards to education. However, your discussion is a great example of are we looking at all of the Five Causal Categories, and/or are the variables stated above predictions or assumptions. To question further, are you looking at the data and going "assumption deep." Meaning, the points you bring up are valid, but have we also looked at the instructional variables that we can influence student progress to give all students a fighting chance. I appreciate your dedication of digging into your data and connecting it to the personal lives of individual students. I hope you did not take the statements in the chapter prompt personal, or thought the discussion was solely around ISTEP.
ReplyDelete"Owning" the data means that we own what it says, dig deeper to find the root cause, and then develop plans of action to improve the variables that we can impact. Your comments above are possibly true, but if we do not also continue the conversation on to what we can improve, we will never know if we are doing everything we can for students, regardless of other factors, such as home life, lack of effort, etc.
You comment in regards to it would be foolish to think that data is created in a vacuum is quite accurate. That's why it is crucial that we develop systems to look at multiple data points from multiple sources, and throughout the year. If we used only one assessment like the ISTEP+ to gauge our work, we would not meet the needs of our learnings. The next chapter, Chapter 4, talks about triangulating data and looking at multiple data points to determine the needs of students. I know this text was not assigned to your grade level, but I am happy you joined in the conversation, and please continue to do so. If you would like a copy of the book stop by the office.
Lastly, please take a look at the questions I asked at the bottom of the prompt for reflection. I hope these questions help Haley begin to look past the assumptions, and begin to make predictions. Furthermore, how do we take those hypothesis and begin to investigate them further? How do we begin the work of developing action research practices to improve the issues of concern?
"Something that stuck out to me in Brandon's original comments to this chapter is that we tend to focus on things that we cannot change. Unfortunately, this is true at times. However, I strongly disagree that parent involvement is something that we cannot change. The lack of parent involvement is a good and valid inquiry for our school. I realize I have only been at Haley for three years so I don't know what it was like "before" or what has been tried in the past. But identifying lack of parent involvement as a "worthy problem" and approaching it with what we are learning in our summer reading could result in some positive changes for our students, our staff, and our school as a whole."
ReplyDelete--Terri