(2 schools will pop up make sure to choose the one located in 1710 Webster Avenue)
Teachers in New York City and State are regularly tasked with reviewing and analyzing student data. Evaluating student assessment data is even part of the edTPA, a performance-based teacher preparation assessment that all aspiring teachers in New York State must complete and pass in order to become certified. For this assignment, you will explore school- or district-level data using course concepts and week 5 materials as lenses, which hopefully will allow you to challenge some of the assumptions embedded in the ubiquitous practice of exploring data in New York.
Access the data for one or two (your choice) different public secondary schools or school districts in New York City or State by visiting the New York State Education Department’s data webpage (http://data.nysed.gov/) or the New York City Department of Education’s School quality webpage (https://www.schools.nyc.gov/about-us/reports/school-quality). Other data websites are acceptable, but these two are easily accessible for those new to reviewing State and City school data. Preferably, one of the schools or districts you choose would be the school or district where you work or hope to work. For example, you might look at Scarsdale, Mount Vernon, and/or New York City. Or, you might look at Bronx Science High School, the high school you graduated from, and/or the one where you teach.
You will share your findings according to the directions below by creating a VoiceThread presentation. (Graded for completion and appropriateness.) Note: Your VoiceThread presentation should be made viewable to all class members with the intention that you will view each other’s presentations to generate new insights about trends across NYS schools and about how school data is conceived of across the City and State.
Analyze the data. (What do you notice? What do you wonder?)
Deepen your analysis by considering the various possible reasons for the patterns you notice. (What does the data reveal? What does it not reveal? What surprises you?)
Consider what meaning you make of the data related to school equity and the readings/video for week 5. You MUST reference at least one course materials to earn full credit for this reflection. Here, you might think about the patterns you note. You might also think about the categories of data collected by the City and State. (What questions or points do the data raise about what schools are for? Why might NYS or NYC collect this kind of data? What does it show about our values in the City and State?)
Create a VoiceThread presentation, following the directions below, in which you present your analysis and reflections. Create your presentation as though you are giving it to EITHER a group of colleagues at a school faculty meeting OR a group of parents and families at a community action meeting. Speak to us as though you are speaking to either one of these groups.
Make the presentation viewable to all class members. (See below.)
There are many ways to successfully approach this assignment. For example, in past courses, some have chosen to include a chart they’ve created with “Noticings,” “Wonderings,” and “Possible explanations,” along with the data they explored. Others have included screenshots of the data while they explain their analysis verbally. To keep the assignment manageable, you should choose just a few factors in the data to focus on for your presentation.
Additional tips on navigating the data websites:
For http://data.nysed.gov/, I have found the site to work better with Firefox and Explorer than Chrome. To access specific data on this site,
Enter a school or district name in the search box at the top of the main landing page.
General demographic data will appear and links to student achievement and teacher data will be available at the bottom of the page. You will be presented with a number of options for viewing school data.
Most schools will have data available through the 2019-2020 school year.
If you view data for 2017-2018, it will give you the “Student and Educator Report Card” option. This includes information on free and reduced-price lunch, average class size, student attendance and suspension rates, numbers of teachers, counselors, social workers, and principals, teacher attendance and teacher turnover rate by those with fewer than 5 years teaching experience and all teachers.
For https://www.schools.nyc.gov/about-us/reports/school-quality, choose “Search for your school’s most recent School Quality Guide” and/or “Search for your school’s most recent Performance Dashboard” to access specific data.
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