9.3 Keep Track
Imagine if Amazon.com were unable to keep track of customer purchases. Imagine a pharmaceutical company unable to tell one pill from another. Or a bank losing track of accounts. In the last few decades, the world has become accustomed to organizations that can keep track of things in large numbers, in great detail.
Education is not like that, especially in California. In 2006, four major foundations (Gates, Irvine, Hewlett and Stuart) jointly invested about $3 million to fund “Getting Down to Facts,” a coordinated set of research studies to inform discussions of California education reform options.
One of the clearest top-line findings of this research was that the systems associated with public education data in California are utterly behind the times. The official 8-page summary of the studies put it bluntly. “California is incapable of effective system learning and continuous improvement… It is almost impossible to think of systemic performance improvement in California without dramatic changes in the state’s approach to information.”
One example of the state’s inept approach to data is the School Accountability Report Card (SARC). Schools in California must report a wide variety of information in their SARC, including both input and output metrics, as well as explanatory text. Some information, such as the actual spending per student in each school using true salary costs, is only available through the SARC.
SARC reports can be a useful source of information, if you can find them. Each school can publish its SARC using its own format and make it available to the public in any manner it chooses. As a practical matter, many districts arrange to have their SARCs prepared by a vendor, such as SchoolWisePress, CSBA or SI&A. The state does not summarize SARC reports; indeed, it does not even collect them.
Data systems to track and support student achievement exist in many states in America, but in 2011 California still struggled to make systems work together in a way that avoids creating piles of garbage data. The two major state data systems (CALPADS for student data and CALTIDES for teacher data) have been chronically late in arrival, and notoriously unloved. (Governor Brown vetoed funding for it, at the cost of millions in federal funds.) Another effort, Cal-PASS, was created with foundation support to help provide data for community colleges. Meanwhile, districts have paid to develop their own systems – or done without.
Lack of a credible data system contributed to the state’s loss in the Race to the Top competition. Other states, notably Florida and Texas, are much farther along in being able to make decisions based on data. There is no chance that this data weakness can continue forever in California.
Next: 9.4 Focus on Improvement
Khan Academy is an e-learning organization which currently has over 130 exercise modules for K-12 math, with another 150+ to be added over Summer 2011 and the 2011-2012 year.
One of the strengths of Khan Academy is its invaluable set of tools for teachers who use it. It provides a deep set of reporting tools in real time:
- student by student tables, charts and graphs showing topic by topic progress, broken down into “working on it”, “proficient”, and “currently stuck”
- for each student / topic combo, a question by question bar chart showing how many seconds the student took, if / when they watched a video, if they got it right and with each bar clickable so the teacher can zoom down to the actual problem.
- focus graphs showing where the student is spending time both doing exercises and watching videos
… and more.
The way these tools were developed was through a tight iteration cycle with parents, students and teachers to find out what they wanted and needed to make their lives easier. As a result of this effort, teachers who use Khan Academy have much better information from which to make decisions about how to spend time, which students to spend time with and where “the pulse” of their class is.
While the Khan Academy reporting tools work just on a student by student and classroom by classroom basis, it is a proof point that good reporting tools can be developed to allow stakeholders (in this case students, parents and teachers) to have real time information to make better decisions and thus create better student outcomes.
To see what some of these reporting tools look like and what is possible when creating such things, click here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw5k98GV7po
Peter Kuperman
Full Circle Fund Member
Khan Academy volunteer
I couldn’t say it any better than Jeff. Data is the foundation for improvement in any sector. It is just as important in education. CALPADS and CALTIDES are the state systems that will allow us to use data to answer critical questions vital to education improvement. What is our drop-out rate? What’s the real graduation rate? Where do we see variations on a statewide and regional basis? What drop-out interventions appear to work the best? What happens to students who transfer from one school in one part of the state to another? Right now, a student’s records do NOT follow him or her electronically from a school in one part of the state to another. As a result, teachers and administrators are in the dark about a child’s previous history until they receive paper records. As a result, the child may repeat interventions. Schools may place students in duplicative classes or act on incorrect assumptions about a student’s performance level. Think of the waste in time, individual potential and resources that result from the inability to access such basic data. Unfortunately, the systems that could answer such questions – CALPADS and CALTIDES – are at serious risk. Just as they were about to be implemented, Governor Brown submitted a budget that would de-fund them. This is incredibly short-sighted and the Governor needs to hear that message from anyone interested in improving our education system.