The Spaghetti Project...
In a really interesting post comparing schools to spaghetti sauce, Dr. Parry Graham--a colleague of mine--recently argued that the amount of information being given to parents regarding student success is inadequate.
"Once a child is enrolled in a school, parents receive relatively limited information about the quality of education the child is receiving. While parents may see good grades on a report card every nine weeks, do those grades necessarily reflect the quality of education?" he writes, "How many parents with students in K-12 public schools have a clear understanding of what their children should be learning, how their children are progressing relative to those learning goals, and how their children’s rate of progress compares to that of children in other classrooms or nearby schools?"
What's more, Graham argues that providing parents with more information would actually lead to improved schools. "By providing parents with more specific information about the quality of education that their children are receiving, we would give them tools to help us improve the quality of education that we provide. External, consumer-driven pressure is a powerful force for improvement in any industry, but consumers can only make good choices if they have good information."
While I agree with Graham's central premise that parents deserve accurate, timely, easy to understand information about student performance--information that is often not currently provided--I think he's missing a few key points that must be addressed to make his plan possible.
First, teachers will need significant support in developing formative assessments that accurately measure student achievement. As an "accomplished educator," I am almost ashamed to admit that I have little confidence in my own classroom assessments because I've never been taught how to create high quality, reliable measures of student achievement. While I've got a "good sense" of what my children know and can do, it is based on more than fourteen years of experience---not on the homework assignments or quizzes that I give.
(Don't tell my principal that I said that!)
What's more, I have little access to management systems that allow me to quickly and easily collect and analyze data at the classroom level. "Looking for trends," and "making comparisons" between students means shuffling through stacks of paper or flipping pages in my gradebook. Our school--a leader in student achievement and innovation--asks teachers to keep data records in three-ring binders--and I end up drowning in data that I struggle to draw meaning from.
Finally, teachers will need significant time to develop reporting systems that work. While the trend towards increased communication between home and school is essential, it also chews away at already limited planning hours. Between replying to emails, updating websites and returning phone calls, communication has become an almost overwhelming task. To add additional expectations and responsibilities without extending non-instructional time for teachers would hurt the quality of classroom teaching.
Graham's logic is sound---Parents deserve to have accurate information about the performance of their children. But generating and communicating accurate information is a task I'm not sure I'm currently qualified or capable of completing.
How about you?
In a really interesting post comparing schools to spaghetti sauce, Dr. Parry Graham--a colleague of mine--recently argued that the amount of information being given to parents regarding student success is inadequate.
"Once a child is enrolled in a school, parents receive relatively limited information about the quality of education the child is receiving. While parents may see good grades on a report card every nine weeks, do those grades necessarily reflect the quality of education?" he writes, "How many parents with students in K-12 public schools have a clear understanding of what their children should be learning, how their children are progressing relative to those learning goals, and how their children’s rate of progress compares to that of children in other classrooms or nearby schools?"
What's more, Graham argues that providing parents with more information would actually lead to improved schools. "By providing parents with more specific information about the quality of education that their children are receiving, we would give them tools to help us improve the quality of education that we provide. External, consumer-driven pressure is a powerful force for improvement in any industry, but consumers can only make good choices if they have good information."
While I agree with Graham's central premise that parents deserve accurate, timely, easy to understand information about student performance--information that is often not currently provided--I think he's missing a few key points that must be addressed to make his plan possible.
First, teachers will need significant support in developing formative assessments that accurately measure student achievement. As an "accomplished educator," I am almost ashamed to admit that I have little confidence in my own classroom assessments because I've never been taught how to create high quality, reliable measures of student achievement. While I've got a "good sense" of what my children know and can do, it is based on more than fourteen years of experience---not on the homework assignments or quizzes that I give.
(Don't tell my principal that I said that!)
What's more, I have little access to management systems that allow me to quickly and easily collect and analyze data at the classroom level. "Looking for trends," and "making comparisons" between students means shuffling through stacks of paper or flipping pages in my gradebook. Our school--a leader in student achievement and innovation--asks teachers to keep data records in three-ring binders--and I end up drowning in data that I struggle to draw meaning from.
Finally, teachers will need significant time to develop reporting systems that work. While the trend towards increased communication between home and school is essential, it also chews away at already limited planning hours. Between replying to emails, updating websites and returning phone calls, communication has become an almost overwhelming task. To add additional expectations and responsibilities without extending non-instructional time for teachers would hurt the quality of classroom teaching.
Graham's logic is sound---Parents deserve to have accurate information about the performance of their children. But generating and communicating accurate information is a task I'm not sure I'm currently qualified or capable of completing.
How about you?
3 Comments:
Bill,
I would agree that parents should be informed but when is enough, enough? Any school or teacher can easily inundate parents in a gross of data, what all most parents want to know is if their children are doing well in school. That is what a report card is for, and the immediate score information at your disposal is ample to recognize a drop or increase in present student performance, to inform parents. Parents also have lives and jobs that sometimes preclude them from spending hours each night pouring over scholastic reports, when they could be helping in other ways.
Bill,
I absolutely agree with every point you make. In my post, I was trying to identify what I think a system with better information could look like, and how that type of system could serve as a force for school improvement. Getting to that point, however, would require significant work, and much of that work would need to be done by non-teachers (this is especially true of a back-end, online assessment management/reporting system).
I am particularly intrigued by your point about developing high-quality formative assessments. I am of the opinion that assessments should, in many ways, drive the instructional decision-making process. This is Wiggins and McTighe territory: identify your learning objectives, develop assessments to measure student progress against those objectives, and then plan instruction to prepare students for those assessments.
It is in this area of high-quality assessments, and in the area of clearly defining learning objectives, that I think much work is happening in K-12 education. In fact, for those schools attempting to become professional learning communities, these efforts are at the heart of collaborative work among teachers. Any additional professional support and development spent on these activities would, in my opinion, be time very well spent. And I would argue that this should be a central area of focus in any school, district, or state.
Anonymous wrote:
Parents also have lives and jobs that sometimes preclude them from spending hours each night pouring over scholastic reports, when they could be helping in other ways.
Good point, friend. I wonder what level of communication/information the average parents want/expect from their schools. I also wonder what kind of correlation there is between increased communication and student success.
Bill
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