When Everybody is Measuring Schools, It's Time to Reach for Your Own Ruler

ISSUE 75 | MARCH 12, 2007

[This free e-mail newsletter about school information, accountability and the public is provided by School Wise Press. To add a colleague's name to the distribution, please send us their names and e-mail addresses to: stever@schoolwisepress.com. If you'd rather not receive this, simply notify us by phone at (415) 337-7971, or by e-mail, including the word "unsubscribe" in the subject line of your message.]

Is this owl seeing things, or is everyone measuring how your schools are doing? If this is becoming a popular sport, what are you doing to measure and communicate your schools results your way? Here's this owl's review, and a few recommendations for how to fire back with measures of your own.

Students are measuring teachers. High school students by the thousands are evaluating their teachers on a Web site dubbed RateMyTeachers.com. Students grade their teachers based on four criteria: easiness, helpfulness, clarity, and popularity. The comments can be heart-warming or chilling. To appreciate the popularity of this site among the younger set, consider the numbers of reviews for each of these high schools. Castro Valley High in Castro Valley: 5,887 reviews. Acalanes High in Lafayette: 1,518 reviews. Torrey Pines High in San Diego: 4,993 reviews. Here is a link to Torrey Pines' student reviews. This owl suggests you take a minute and read a few.

Parents are evaluating schools. The parent-oriented Greatschools has been collecting parents' comments about schools for several years. On their Web site, parents can score schools based on their assessments of principals, teachers, extracurricular activities, parent involvement, safety, and discipline. The site also encourages principals to respond to the parents reviews. Take a look at Greatschools. See parent's comments about Castro Valley High.

Advocacy groups are evaluating districts. The EdTrust West measures what they call the spending gap between the best-funded and least funded schools within the largest 12 districts in California. Take a look at their summary report. If you want to see what they've published about your district, look here.

Just for the Kids publishes a Web site that compares similar schools to each other, and calculates the gap in achievement between any school and the top ten leaders. They call this the opportunity gap. See the Just for the Kids' profile of Berkeley High.

Standard & Poors analyzes districts and schools. This financial services company is better known for credit ratings of public and private institutions. But for several years, it has been actively creating data reporting systems for state departments of education and districts. Working under a U.S. Dept. of Education grant, their reports span from NCLB accountability measures to student achievement, from spending to ratio analysis. See their Web site and a report for Fresno USD.

ACTIONS YOU CAN TAKE

Return fire with fire, facts with facts. You have the inside position, where your knowledge of your numbers trumps every outside commentator. Why not use your insider status to your advantage, and start answering weak facts with strong ones, partial observations with full ones, isolated observations with observations in a meaningful context.

Both California's accountability metric (API) and the NCLB yardstick (AYP) leave you with two external measures that require your attention. Presenting and explaining these measures is not easy. Yet you could benefit by guiding your public to other measures, those that matter more to you and your leadership, your board, and your principals. It might be your effectiveness at getting kids to college. It might be algebra participation in the eighth grade. Whatever it is, are you measuring it wisely? Are you communicating those measures to your board, your leadership, your local newspaper's editorial board, and your public?

Here are some suggestions to measure your progress more effectively.

1. COMPARE LOCALLY. Only in theory does comparison to state averages help. What your local newspaper, your board, your staff, and your public care about most are local comparisons. You can compare to other schools in your county. Or if your town is large enough, you can compare to other schools in your town. Local schools have more meaning to local residents.

2. COMPARE YOUR SCHOOLS TO CLUSTERS OF SIMILAR SCHOOLS. This is easy to state, but hard to define. If you and your leadership team can define similar, you are on your way to success. Similar starts with school level: middle to middle, high to high. But it can include similar students, teachers, funding--you name it.

3. RANK RESULTS IN SIMPLE LISTS. Complex arrays of too much data at one time are daunting for most readers. The simpler your comparison, the more people will understand it. You are looking for that maximum impact, that teachable moment. Keeping it simple improves your chances of success.

REFERENCES

The seven schools in the Alliance for College-Ready High Schools in Los Angeles are getting kids through the A-G curriculum and into college. Their reports focus on competing schools in the Los Angeles USD. Take a look at the evidence they offer on their Web site. To ask for samples of their smart reports, email a request to jburton@laalliance.org.

The Appleseed Network has published a report on the impact of poor-quality reporting on parents. Titled, "It Takes A Parent" (September 2006), their findings stress "meaningful, understandable, and timely information." The executive summary is well worth reading.

Rate My Teachers

Greatschools

Education Trust/West

Standard & Poors School Matters

Just For The Kids

OWL ARCHIVE | BACK TO NEWSLETTER REGISTRATION PAGE