Talk About Blowing It: Disaggregating Data
After seven local schools failed to make AYP, the Bristol (TN/VA) Herald Courier reported the following:
“Virginia Middle School didn’t make AYP (adequate yearly progress) because its black students underperformed in their English classes. In addition, the middle school’s students with disabilities underperformed in math.”
Readers called to complain about how the results were reported, and the paper acknowledged its insensitive phrasing in an editorial, “Although we try hard, sometimes we just blow it.”
Of course, one of the hallmarks of NCLB is disaggregating test scores to expose where subgroups of students are not achieving. But in this case, reporting the disaggregated data gave the impression not of identifying subgroups who need help, but of blaming them.
The paper rebounded from its gaffe with a thorough explanation of how AYP is calculated and how NCLB’s Byzantine requirements can unfairly punish schools.
As the editorial explained in one example, ”Virginia Middle School missed meeting AYP in reading/English by just four black students, each of whom theoretically could have missed just one question too many.”
The paper used this episode “to question whether No Child Left Behind has left common sense behind,” and went on to call for changes during reauthorization.
So, not a bad save. Let’s hope readers learned some of the intricacies of NCLB, AYP, subgroups, and benchmarks.
Even if this wasn’t the most sensitive way to teach the lesson.
