Stretching Our Thinking

The first thing that resonated with me was the connection between deficit-based thinking and data interpretation. Deficit-based thinking can cause us to believe that differences in educational outcomes are caused by our students' lack of knowledge rather than systemic racism that impacts those students. 
The second thing that resonated with me was the punishments on attendance. I found it interesting that attendance didn't improve until they looked into the root causes rather than imposing harsh punishments on those who did not attend school. 

When quantitative data gives you a heads up that something is amiss, qualitative data can jump in to help solve the mystery. Two great sources of qualitative data could help us in providing an equitable education to our students. They are our students well as our new teachers.

 One piece of data that the SCSD battles with is student attendance. It is NOT what it should be.  Since the rate of school attendance has such a direct effect on educational success, a very relevant question would be "Why aren't you coming to school?"  In conversations with students, three major themes tend rise to the top:  1) physical safety, 2) safe and efficient transportation and 3) the discouragement they feel when classwork is too hard.

Students who don't feel safe in the school they attend are less likely to attend school. Our students feel anxious when they observe violence in school or someone becomes a target on social media. Even if they don't show it, they know in the back of their mind, they could become a target at any time. Many students question why this is allowed to continue and students with normal hesitancy and those with anxiety disorders reduce attendance to avoid the stress.

Our students are also dissatisfied with our transportation system.  This is Syracuse.  Cold, wet and dark for most mornings that our students are coming to school. What high schooler wants to walk over half a mile, along busy streets, at times not cleared, and, at times, in not the safest areas. Waiting at some of those bus stops is not a treat either. Anxiety anyone? Some parents don't feel comfortable sending the kids in those conditions. And if the parent can't drive them to school?  What then?

Another issue is students lacking the basic skills that allows them to participate in grade level classes. As a result, they are uncomfortable and avoid classes. How are our interventions programs functioning? Are they effective?  Was eliminating our Title I program, which provided reading and math remediation, the best choice? 

New teacher turnover is another important information source.  Why is our new teacher turnover rate as high as it is?  What insight can those teachers give us that will help us retain them, which in turn will help us keep kids in the classroom. Student attendance and teacher turnover have more in common than you think.  The SCSD must be able to compete with other districts for teachers.

Education as a power for increased access to opportunity, theoretically, is implicit in the design of our education system. If we consider this statement to be true, one interpretation of the data in schools, is that the differences between demographic groups show that the current design and performance of education within our country serves students of varying demographic groups in differing ways. The differing ways are not equitable across groups and thus produce differing achievement. Societal factors that are outside the services provided within the education context increase these inequalities.  

If the intent of the education system is to serve students equitably, we need to ascertain if our system is realizing this purpose. One means of doing so is a system of measurement with the explicit purpose of measuring for equity. Truly such a system has yet to be fully realized on a national scale.

The indicators to achieve this would need to ensure that the pursuit of equity encompasses both the goals to which the nation/ states aspire for its children as well as the various mechanisms to attain those goals.

Two types of indicators needed include:

(1) indicators that measure disparities in students’ academic achievement and attainment outcomes; and  


(2) indicators that measure equitable access to resources and opportunities, including the structural aspects of school systems that may affect opportunity.  

Singular measures in isolation are usually unable to capture the full complexity of a given situation. A better measurement system has the capability of measuring distinct factors and giving insight into how those factors work together. A collection of indicators, measured overtime, have the potential to demonstrate complexity, highlight patterns of difference across demographic groups (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2019) as well as provide opportunity to raise awareness and focus attention.  

Reference:

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2019). Monitoring educational equity. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/25389

I chose to read Using Data To Advance Racial Equity. What resonated with me includes the following:

• While working towards racial equity, data is a crucial tool for teachers, administrators, and principals to begin the reflection process of taking a look oneself and identify policies that contribute to systemic racism
• Too often, racial blindness and deficit-based thinking can corrupt data analysis.
• Having an equity approach to data analysis means maintaining an awareness of potential distortion and taking proactive steps to counteract it. 
• We must adopt an equity mindset in the collection, interpretation, and use of education data.
• Collecting and then disaggregating for a variety of demographic factors can help uncover such inequities.
  
• Data interpretation can be improved by using two practices: avoiding deficit-based thinking and using qualitative data.
  

I chose to examine Continuum on “Becoming an Anti-Racist Multicultural Organization”. I was mostly struck by the very hard work involved in becoming an anti-racist multicultural organization. Being fully-inclusive can be rare, because of the need to re-structure your organization. I went to a VERY white college, and they struggle to include people of color in their organization because there simply aren’t many who live and work in small-town Pennsylvania. Looking at the continuum looks helpful, in that you can be honest with yourself when if comes to which column your organization rests, and you can pretty clearly see specific ways in which you can improve and shift to the right. I also thought that even though it might seem bad to “just make a policy” or have token people of color on staff… it still is a place to start and grow from. The shift from being exclusionary to anti-racist can sometimes be a long road, and it can feel impossible to make the leap… step by step is often the reality.

It connects back with the idea of “intersectionality” and the idea of collecting the data but analyzing it on a scale of more than one factor I think would give us more meaningful data. Also collecting qualitative data and allowing the students to give their own voice is something I have not heard of before. I feel like so much data is collected based solely on the scores of a test, some numerical measurement. I think we use a lot of “forms” and surveys when we are talking to teachers about how they feel, but a lot of the data we get about students comes from test scores, suspension rates, or some other quantitative measure.

As a science teacher, I work a lot of with data. I have frequently witnessed data manipulation, whether intentional or not. Unfortunately, I suspect the majority of the time this manipulation is accomplished to attain an agenda, be it financial, political, or personal. I teach my students the critical importance of examining sources and potential bias in order to become functional and educated citizens. So although I have been aware of the need for data equity for a long time, I had never heard this formal term. I think it could be easy for someone to SAY they are engaging in equity by acting in a conscientious manner. However, I think specific measures and parameters should be set in place so the data users are able to actually recognize data misconstrual or misuse. Some elements may be so embedded or customary they are difficult to spot. I appreciate the need for supplementing with qualitative data to inform users of context. 

For the Stretch our Thinking, I chose to look at the Continuum. I am not tied to a building this year, but in previous years I noticed that the school which I was working in needed work in the area of structural change. There was lots of diversity among the students in the school, though the staff was mostly white. The staff was engaging in antiracism book studies and students of all backgrounds were represented a fair amount in the school's culture. Nonetheless, audits would show that the data surrounding students of all color and backgrounds were not favorable in terms of suspensions, referrals or even inclusion in extracurriculars like afterschool or band.  

I chose this rubric to evaluate where my school fits in this continuum. I feel like my school is in between "Symbolic Change" and "Identity Change".  I came to this conclusion because I feel like the anti-racist policy changes and curriculum changes have been surface-level. In other words, I feel we are not changing the structure of "Behavioral Intervention Time" or "data-driven assessments". Instead, we make small cosmetic changes that continue to produce the same inequities without changing the structure. We practice social emotional learning, but in designated time blocks. Even that aspect has to fit within the structure of the institution.