Push to collect data

Michael writes:

Hopefully this reinforces Al's previous post.

In February, staff were required to conference, maintain conferencing records and collect data on credit accumulation. To date, one-quarter through this final semester, only two staff members have provided data. One is on the leadership team and one is not. The fact that the leadership team is not getting this data together is a big problem.

The problem now in late March is the lack of data regarding student progress and correlation to conferencing. We have to look at how we’re doing and ground it in data. We can’t do that if the data isn’t collected and provided. Please do that.

What I have now is limited to two crews. This data is based on progress of students between January 31st and March 28th.

Crew #1
5 undercredited 11th graders

Past Record (data from Semester 1)
5/5 earned less credit than their average earning power.
5/5 increased their burden (have more to do per semester than in the past)
1/5 fell off track (previously on track)

Based on 20 class days since January 31st (data from 1/31 through 3/28)

5/5 are earning more credit than they did last semester
5/5 are earning more credit than their past average earning power
3/5 increased their burden
2/5 meeting or decreasing burden – moving from off-track to on-track

Correlation to conferencing: unknown. No conferencing statistics provided.

Crew #2
Information was provided in aggregate form. That is, overall 14 students have earned a total of 8 credits in the first 20 days. Not broken out per student although range is earnings of 0-2 credits per student in first 20 days.

When this aggregate earnings is compared to aggregate earnings for past semester’s undercredited 11th graders, we see no significant difference in earning. That is, students on average earned 2.25 credits last semester and projecting from this current report will earn 2.42 credits per student.

Every student in this group has had at least one conference. Each student has experienced 1-3 conferences.