This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Oct. 2, 2013 - When Missouri school officials release a flood of data every summer, the numbers usually result in a flurry of news, good or bad, then quickly sink from view.
But where the public’s attention ends, school districts’ work is just beginning.
What do the numbers mean? How can student performance be tweaked, a little or a lot, to boost outcomes in the coming school year? Can small changes lead to big gains? Which schools, subjects, teachers, grades need the most attention?
For many districts across Missouri, the answers to those questions come from the office of Farhad Jadali, an assistant superintendent in the Ferguson-Florissant schools who works with data not just from that north St. Louis County district but from about 30 of its counterparts statewide.
Where the public sees numbers that may numb the mind and drive their attention elsewhere, Jadali divines many of the answers to academic riddles that can keep school officials up at night, counting not sheep but the points they need to earn their district an acceptable accreditation status.
"We analyze data far beyond what DESE does," Jadali said in a recent session at his office, referring to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. "DESE just looks at the big picture.
"For our purposes, when I work with a district, I have to go in and see which schools carry their own weight, which ones don’t."
To solve that puzzle, and come up with strategies to make the numbers turn out better the next time around, Jadali scrutinizes the results from as many different points of view as he can.
He can tell not only how well this year’s third graders did compared to last year’s, but how well last year’s third graders did when they moved up to fourth grade. He knows which teachers do best teaching which subjects, how factors such as race and family income affect performance and who has the best strategies to deal with such potential drags on a student’s learning.
And Jadali makes all those numbers and all those insights available to anyone in his district or elsewhere who could benefit.
"We use data from every angle possible so we can make effective decisions," he said. "Everything I’m sharing with you, every teacher in our district has access to.
"That is why data-driven decision making becomes a big part of any organization. All superintendents are selected to that job because they are one of the elite. They are the best. And of course they have a fundamental view that something is going to work, but an effective superintendent should rely on data. Data should drive their decisions."
How Ferguson-Florissant stacks up
When DESE released the first set of evaluations performed under MSIP5, the fifth version of the Missouri School Improvement Plan, the news for Ferguson-Florissant flashed a big yellow caution light.
Under the state’s guidelines, districts need to gain 70 percent or more of the 140 possible points in their annual performance report to be accredited. Districts scoring between 50 and 70 are provisionally accredited, and anything below 50 percent results in unaccredited status.
Ferguson-Florissant had 97 points out of 140, or 69.3 percent — less than one percentage point away from the 70 percent threshold for full accreditation.
Because state education officials say they won’t make any recommendations for changes in accreditation until they have three years of MSIP5 data, the district isn’t in danger of becoming provisionally accredited right away. But Superintendent Art McCoy showed he was keenly aware of the possibility.
He noted that the district had done a simulation of MSIP5 a year earlier, in anticipation of the introduction of the new system, and Ferguson-Florissant had already gained from 90 points the year before, so movement was already in the right direction. And he said plans were already in place to keep the momentum going.
At a September town hall meeting, the district released the MSIP5 numbers for each of its 17 elementary, three middle and three high schools, as well as for the district as a whole. Those figures yielded a top-level list of insights.
- The graduation rate was strong, earning the district all 30 points available in that category.
- On the other end of the scale, the district received none of the eight points available for social studies.
- Performance by the so-called super subgroup — students who are black, Hispanic, receive free or reduced-price lunch, have special education learning plans or come from homes where English is not the primary language — was weak, earning five of 14 possible points
- For individual schools, only Vogt elementary earned 100 percent of the points possible.
- Two schools, Berkeley middle and Airport elementary, had scores in the unaccredited range. Several more, at all levels, were in provisionally accredited territory.
- Several schools received no points at all in individual academic subjects, including Airport elementary in math and several in science.
Those kinds of numbers help families and others get quick takeaways on how Ferguson-Florissant is doing. But Jadali’s analysis goes much deeper. He can look at individual students, the special assistance they get, and how well the attention is working.
"I can see that Johnny did this here and took this here," he said. "Maggie did this here and took this here.
"We look at so many different correlations between different interventions we have, the different programs we have, to see if they really help us or not."
Low-hanging fruit
Because of the way MSIP5 is structured, districts get more points when their students show progress but get no points if their scores are stuck in the lowest category, below basic.
Displaying a dizzying array of numbers on a large computer screen in his office, Jadali shows how he can identify those students who might be on the verge of moving up the performance ladder, helping the district gain more points, as well as what strategies Ferguson-Florissant can use to help make the improvement happen.
Showing numbers from seventh-grade students at Cross Keys Middle School, sorted by their achievement scores, he notes that one point separates two particular students, but that one point is crucial.
"With a quick nudge," Jadali said of the lower-scoring student, "this child would be at the next level. We target those kids who are at below basic. That is the lowest hanging fruit. That is how we can make progress in the district."
He can further sort those students by subject and by teacher, gleaning valuable information on whose students do better in which areas depending on which class they are in. Within a particular subject, such as English, the data can be brought down to an even more detailed level, delineating specific skills, like the ability to develop vocabulary from a text or using information in a passage to draw conclusions.
"If I want to know who is my superstar, in an area like speaking and writing standard English, it is this teacher," Jadali said. "If I want to know who is the superstar in reading fiction and nonfiction, it is this teacher."
From that kind of analysis, the district has devised a blueprint to address the deficiencies highlighted in the MSIP5 report:
- The district plans to sharpen its focus on literacy and language in science and social studies, to help students understand the subjects better.
- It will seek corporate partnerships in the so-called STEM subjects, science, technology, engineering and math.
- It will have students spend more time before and after school, on weekends and in summer programs to gain the mastery they need in particular subjects.
- It will increase the number of students taking such tests as the ACT and SAT, to boost its score in the college and career readiness category, where it received 20 points out of 30.
- It will establish student-teacher pairings to boost attendance for those students who were in class less than 90 percent of the time, the threshold for earning MSIP5 points in that category.
Staying on top of the numbers
The data collection doesn’t stop with the district’s annual performance report. Statistics are collected from the first day of school. Data teams meet weekly to track progress and see what course corrections may be needed, Jadali said.
A big emphasis, he said, is on growth — recording where students begin the academic year and where they end up, to track what kind of progress they have made. That metric erases the old argument that a teacher may be doing well because she has brighter kids than some of her colleagues.
"It’s no longer a matter of I’ve got good kids or I’ve got bad kids," Jadali said.
For teachers, such information can be an indispensable in helping understand on how they can help their students improve. And when one teacher finds an approach that is working, others can take advantage of that information as well.
At a time when school districts have little money to spare, that kind of help is invaluable, Jadali said, in terms of progress and in terms of recognition for a job well done.
"Because of budget cuts," he said, "I can’t say, 'You are fantastic teachers, here is $500.' But I can put on our website some of their lesson plans, how these teachers is teaching in their classrooms, what their best practices are, what is really working.
"It’s not a merit award, but it’s an acknowledgement of their success."
It’s also a way to show everyone involved whether teachers are being effective.
"The minute we don’t hold teachers accountable, it becomes an assembly line," Jadali said. "We have to make sure they know what they are working on and how there are efforts yielding results."
With all of the attention being paid to students who have transferred this fall from Normandy and Riverview Gardens — more than 440 of them to Ferguson-Florissant — such detailed information about progress is even more valuable than it has been in the past.
Jadali noted that his data trove will be able to display that kind of information in as much detail as educators will want, as often as they want it.
"I'm sure everybody wants to see that," he said. "I’m sure parents want to see that. I’m sure Riverview Gardens wants to see that. I'm sure we want to see that."