Data Analysis

FROM MICHAEL:

I looked at the credits earned in January and analysed the credit accumulation for all our 11th graders. It is very likely that some of you may respond that the data is not all accurate and that is true. However, it is my opinion that it is accurate enough to make the general conclusions made below. Although we should still be working on accuracy, for the purposes of looking at our 11th graders I think this data is good enough. In order to avoid being on some radar screen for a school in need of improvement, we would have to be wrong on about 40 of our students by a semester’s worth of credit. If we are wrong on anything less than 40 students or by less than a semester’s worth of credit, it is not going to make any big difference anyway. Remember that when we are talking about 3 or 4 kids who have significant credit differences. Or even if we have dozens who are off by a few credits. It really won’t matter much.


I looked at three things.

+++On Track Students: Did the students in your crew get on track, off track or stable compared to how they started in September.

Not one student who was “off track” get “on track.” Even if they did better this semester than the past, they were still so behind that it was not enough to get them on track (Out of 65 students only 12 students actually earned more in January than they usually do per semester).

8/12 crews saw no change in this category and “did no harm.” However, 4 crews had a student who was previously “on track” fall “off track.”

+++Earning Power: How many credits did a student earn in January compared to their average credit earning per semester. Did they earn less, as much or more than they had in the past?

12 students earned more credit in January than they usually do. These students are spread out over 7 crews.

50 students earned less credit in January than they usually do and 5 crews saw all their students earn less than that student’s average.

+++Burden: Every student – even those on track – have a certain number of credits they need to earn per future semester in order to graduate on time. Did these burdens increase, decrease or stay stable?

59 students saw their burden increase. That is, they fell more behind than they were in September.

7 crews had every one of their students see their burdens increase. That is, all these students are in a worse position than they were in September.

4 crews each had a single student reduce their burden. 1 crew had one student stay stable.

So, as a school we lost more kids to the off track status, increased the burden of 90% of the students, and saw 77% of the students earn less credit than they had in previous semesters.