Teaching Matters blogs

8th Grade Students Use Civil Rights Curricular Program as Path for Growth and Mastery

Lynette Guastaferro — Fri, 03 May 2013 17:26:37 +0000

By Emily Durkin, Teaching Matters Program Coordinator and guest blogger

Being “relevant” is one tried and true way of engaging students and helping them best absorb new knowledge and skills. And despite fears that adopting Common Core standards might squelch meaningful instruction, we’ve found the opposite to be true. Deep learning is taking place - and it’s having life-altering consequences.

Social Studies teachers and students across the city are embarking on this year’s Teaching Matters’ Voices and Choices program, which encourages students to grapple with civil rights issues in a penetrating way. Our past experiences have been heartening. Young people become passionate about their own stake in policy and politics when they learn how the system works, and hone in on specific issues. They feel informed, in the know - and more powerful. That sentiment can spur educational growth, and even launch a career.

It is crucial to aim high – and that’s what the Common Core is all about. Voices and Choices has as its hallmark critical thinking, the marshaling of evidence, and the ability to make a case.

Student involvement in Voices and Choices culminates at the Annual Civil Rights Student Summit, which epitomizes the promise of the Common Core Standards. Throughout the six -week unit, students focus on worthy texts, including the U.S. Constitution and federal legislation. They not only engage in critical thinking and analysis as emphasized in the standards, but also apply these skills to understanding current civil rights issues and taking next steps - raising public awareness and promoting action.

Back in 2008, three eighth grade students from Queens focused on female soldiers in their presentation, Shouldn't Women in the Military Have Rights Protecting Them? Now one of them has become an advocate in a civil rights organization. As a current college student who was engaged in Common Core level work in 8th grade, she is again providing us with a glimpse of what the future has in store - much like she did in advocating for women in the military four years before we saw the recent change in the law to allow women in combat.

Day after day, classrooms are exposed to civil rights and constitutional issues in the news. The tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School encouraged questions in the gun control debate; the death of Kimani Grey spurred discussion about racial profiling. These are just two examples of important evidence-based conversations kids are having. As the Common Core Standards emphasize, students are referring to primary sources, such as the Second Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. to inform their points of view.

The Common Core presents us with the opportunity to engage students in critical analysis and powerfully express their voices, ultimately leading to college readiness - and life readiness.

For more information about the free, Common Core aligned civics units and the culminating events please contact Emily Durkin at edurkin@teachingmatters.org (212) 870-3505

Cooking Up Curricula: Not Always Best From Scratch

Lynette Guastaferro — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:04:24 +0000

Perhaps it's fair to expect that the best and most experienced gourmet chefs will write their own cookbooks and never use a prepared mix for any part of their recipes. But that particular preference for creative uniqueness has its limits. In New York City, there seems to be a prevailing notion that all teachers must develop curricula from scratch. That's neither practical nor wise.

When teachers join together, spend the time, and do the hard work of creating novel curricula and assessments, the results can be extraordinarily good. We've seen it - and participated in it. Professional learning communities can generate beautifully crafted solutions to their own schools' and students' needs, while honoring the rigor represented by new Common Core standards. But unfortunately, many urban schools face challenges that cause this organic curriculum development strategy to fail. The failure causes many new teachers unnecessary stress, and even worse, harms students.

We have found that a well-designed, rigorous curriculum developed externally but adopted and adapted by teachers to meet their students' needs best serves some urban schools. How does a principal decide whether to buy or to build? And now that we are moving to Common Core standards requiring every teacher to fundamentally redesign their instructional plans -- what should a principal do? Should teachers develop or upgrade units from scratch?

Here are some specific questions to ponder:

Does your school have many new teachers who are still struggling with instructional basics?
Is there a lot of teacher turnover?
Do new teachers lack access to curriculum guides developed by prior teachers, and strike out on their own because they must?
Are the expectations implicit in the lessons developed by teachers who have gone solo insufficiently rigorous?
Do teachers need strong examples of Common Core in practice?
Are teachers asking you for a common curriculum?

When the answer to most of these questions is yes, adopt and adapt. And make sure teachers are included every step along the way.

Once the decision has been made to adopt and adapt, creative modification is not only warranted, but vital. An outside curriculum can be the cause of some of the most uninspired teaching imaginable. Have you ever seen teachers going through the motions of scripted curricula without injecting their own personalities, spin and excitement? That's not the kind of bland diet we want to feed our children.

What to do? We have found that when you combine strong, quality common curricula, common student tasks and assessments and, most importantly, professional learning communities – something powerful happens. First of all, research done in urban schools shows students learn more.

Second, we have found that teachers experience an increase in their sense of satisfaction and efficacy. How? It doesn't always happen overnight, but it often happens the first time teachers in a common planning session realize they really understand one another's challenges with a lesson. Or they understand exactly what another teacher was trying to do in her classroom and know how to make the lesson work better. The community and support they provide each other lifts everyone's practice.

Lesson planning, like inventing new recipes, is immensely challenging and rewarding. For some teachers, it's one of the main reasons they love teaching. By no means am I advocating a retreat from that kind of engagement and inventiveness, and rote following of menus. But I am saying that a rich professional learning community can be the very best setting for effective cooking, and make the common - curriculum, that is - no less than extraordinary.

Most chefs don't cook alone. Let's encourage teamwork and the inspired use of collective wisdom and inspiration.

Great Principals Know Teaching Matters - and We Recognize Them

Lynette Guastaferro — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 16:05:52 +0000

Great Principals come in a wide variety of personalities and styles - there is no single template. We celebrate them and their schools each year when we award our Elizabeth Rohatyn Prize, for which nominations will be accepted starting March 1.

Even with great variation among type, we see one especially important commonality among the finest principals. They understand to their core that teaching matters. Great principals are not always the building's classic instructional leader. But if they're not, they have one or more great instructional leaders at and on their side.

The most effective principals almost always set up systems to ensure that teachers are working in collaborative ways. Sometimes the collaboration is subtle, and sometimes, as we saw in our last two Rohatyn Prize Winners, teacher collaboration and continuous improvement are built into the school's DNA.

Collaboration is not an end in and of itself. It's about developing trust. Trust in schools makes it possible for people to grow. How? Trust allows teachers to admit when they need help, acknowledge challenges and pain points, share ideas and take advantage of opportunities to improve. In those places where there is trust among teachers -- and the honesty necessary to push each other's practice -- you will most likely find children reaching their potential.

A principal, like a teacher in her classroom, is the key to creating a climate of trust. The Rohatyn Prize for Schools Where Teaching Matters feels particularly timely this year. With the demise of the teacher evaluation deal there was conflict between teachers and management about how we should support and advance the teaching profession.Trust seemed in short supply.

We are glad to offer a forum where teachers and parents can highlight the great work of principals who run schools where teaching matters and trust flourishes. The critical importance of a strong, effective leader is clear. And we want them to be clearly recognized, rewarded, and emulated. Please weigh in with a nomination!

Moving Forward After a Deal’s Demise

Lynette Guastaferro — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 05:00:00 +0000

There is every reason to bemoan the lost chance of a teacher evaluation deal last Thursday night, not the least of which is the hundreds of millions of dollars now derailed from educating children. Even more dollars may be at stake. Equally important, New York City has stalled in adopting a new evaluation system that can and should benefit teachers and students alike.

A strong, meaningful process for teacher feedback is critical to teacher development and retention. A great number of teachers, especially in their early years, suffer from the sinking sense that they are flying the plane alone with no support. I can attest to the feeling from my own personal experiences as a rookie teacher years ago.

The evaluation and feedback system that the teachers' union and New York State had apparently agreed to could have offered a strong starting point. While many teachers rightly fear value added analysis, which has been shown to be unreliable when used alone, this evaluation system offered multiple measures, including the use of local measures which could be designed to capture gains that may not show in state tests.

Just in the past month, the Gates Foundation issued a report that promoted a three-part methodology in evaluations, consisting of student performance, student evaluations of teachers, and observations of teachers in the classroom. The Gates research showed that evaluations that go beyond student test score measures, treating them as an element of multiple sources of evidence, render a much more reliable system of evaluation. And the other sources of evidence suggested by the Gates report were valuable not only because they increased evaluation reliability. These evaluation tools of peer observation and student feedback offer critical opportunities to change the culture and the conversation in schools so as to deeply benefit the teaching profession.

As we regroup and consider where we go from here, our premise is that evaluation and feedback processes are useful, and also will require a significant influx of time and resources to do well. To be most productive, they shouldn't be formulated and valued as a tool for firing bad teachers. Instead, they must be oriented toward setting and supporting a high standard for instruction.

The parties are being urged back to the table, and may reach an accord. Even if new negotiations do result in a deal, New York City is now lagging behind other jurisdictions. All but four New York Counties reached evaluation agreements by the January 17th deadline. We have lost, or at least jeopardized, a timely opportunity to have a common conversation about what really works. But whatever gets done in the state's largest city, that doesn't mean we can't glean lessons from the myriad different approaches that will be put into operation elsewhere. We can and will look to the experience of other districts across New York as they strive to implement a strong rigorous system for teacher evaluation and feedback. The information could prove very instructive.

As we move forward, here are some of my questions about the evaluation landscape, and how we can make the ground more fertile:

Can local measures help resolve the tremendous fear among teachers whose students are being tested on material multiple grades ahead of where they are developmentally and content-wise? A non-teacher can't easily understand the anxiety associated with teaching to a 10th grade test, with students reading on a second to fourth grade reading level. Is it possible to develop an evaluation system that would reward and offer incentives to those teachers? Could local measures include items like relative movement in reading level?
Do student evaluations work consistently in actual practice? Gates' research showed when student evaluations of teachers were included as one measure of teaching effectiveness, there was a significant increase in ratings reliably. It turned out 30 students with 180 hours of exposure to a teacher were more reliable than a single adult observation. But teachers are rightly skeptical of this idea on the ground. What if you are teaching in a classroom or a school where the culture is broken down? Will some students use this tool to further undermine teacher authority? I personally think this might be a very meaningful way for teachers to get feedback, and perhaps districts that embraced this measure will find that teachers ultimately consider it useful, leading us to revisit the question.
What kinds of changes will districts make to their current evaluation systems as information filters in? One of the apparent sticking points in the New York City negotiations was the notion of reconsidering evaluation plans every two years. We know, though, that modifying plans to accommodate what is learned from the evaluation process is predictably necessary. Can we build in evaluation system revisions every two years without rendering the past evaluations null and void? Having that expectation in place, we could construct a process of continuous improvement.
In the coming Common Core era, there are sure to be some challenges. Evaluation is every bit as necessary, but complicated by shifting curricula and tests that measure what may not have been taught as students "catch up" to the expectations of Common Core. Literally in the shift to Common Core, students going from fifth to sixth grade math this year may never learn adding and subtracting fractions. Furthermore, the teacher that slows down to teach those missing standards is penalized if she doesn't get to later standards. There needs to be due acknowledgment of that reality.

Finally, to move forward in the most productive manner, we need to ratchet up trust throughout our school systems. The way toward trust is fairness and transparency. Teachers must feel that a new evaluation system will give them a fair shake, and a meaningful opportunity for growth and improvement. That will lead to a better atmosphere for all.

Are you a smart consumer of data?

Lynette Guastaferro — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 21:08:40 +0000

by Evan O'Donnell, Director of Information and Technology

Teachers are often told to be careful consumers of data and to look at more than one source when identifying student learning problems. This is good advice. But while a one-stop shopping experience might be preferable, in practice these multiple sources are rarely found in the same place. In most schools, when a student takes an assessment, the type of assessment determines where the data will go.

State testing data can be found in ARIS, while local assessments go into the teacher’s grade book. Predictive assessments can be in Acuity, or in the assessment provider’s proprietary system. This can make it difficult to look at different data sources together. So, the challenge becomes how to take diverse products from many different aisles and put them in the same shopping cart.

As with any complex problem, sometimes simpler is better. And there are some simple strategies for schools to use when incorporating student-level data in their instructional decision making. Just follow the same strategies you use when buying groceries:

Make a List & Budget
Grow Organic
Shop Local

First, make a list of all the assessments and data sources that your school has, and what the purpose of each of them is. This means all sources - from the high-stakes tests, all the way down to the classroom assessments, goal setting databases, and those parent and teacher surveys that are sent out. Most schools will find a lot of overlap and perhaps unnecessary data sources. Prioritize them, make some difficult decisions about where you want to spend your effort - everything on this list costs time, effort and adds to a complex situation. It’s okay to start simple.

Next, you want to grow organic. Gathering data sources, creating common assessments, norming on how to score, and then using that data to inform instruction is not something a school can do all at once. With all good change-practice, it is best to grow from the bottom up and support from the top-down. Allow those subject areas or grade levels that are ready to self-select, give them the time to meet throughout the year to work out the kinks, and set up the monitoring and support to ensure they are supported. Most importantly, don’t give up when things aren’t working smoothly. Organic produce tends to have more blemishes, but it is ultimately better for your long-term health.

Finally, shop for your technology solution locally. Because this change is more about school culture and how people inform decisions, it’s important that the technology systems support the gathering of data and don’t dictate the process. The systems need to fit your local needs. This is one area where there is some help on the way. There are products and vendors out there that will bend over backwards and customize their platforms to fit the needs of your school (Jumpro.pe is one example). If your school is tech-savvy, initially these systems might be self-created. Shared Google Spreadsheets can go a long way.

These steps may take time to implement, but are worth the effort in the long run. Being a smart consumer of data includes having strategies for comparing data from different sources.

How 60 Kids, 3 Teachers, and 1 Innovative Principal are Improving Teacher Effectiveness

Lynette Guastaferro — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 13:53:33 +0000

Teaching Matters is pleased to announce that Rose Kerr, principal of the Staten Island School of Civic Leadership (R861) is the recipient of the second annual Elizabeth Rohatyn Prize for Schools Where Teaching Matters. The $15,000 prize was presented to Ms. Kerr at the Fifth Annual Teaching Matters’ Forum for Principals based on the school’s innovative “Triad Model.”

The Triad Model is a teacher effectiveness initiative that puts three teachers in charge of comprehensive instruction for two classrooms. This allows the team of teachers to own responsibility for everything from analyzing student performance data and developing interventions, to scheduling. The initiative elevates teacher teaming to a whole new level. During her acceptance speech, principal Kerr explained the powerful effects of the Triad Model. She emphasized that it didn’t necessitate additional funding to implement but simply required reorganizing existing resources. “Ask any child in our building who their teacher is and it becomes plainly obvious they have not one, but three teachers accountable for their continued success,” said Ms. Kerr.

The goal of the Elizabeth Rohatyn Prize for Schools Where Teaching Matters is to recognize leaders that create schools designed to promote teacher effectiveness. “Of course every teacher should be a highly qualified professional, but we need to get beyond the idea of the hero teacher,” says Lynette Guastaferro, Executive Director of Teaching Matters. “Effective school leaders run schools that look like modern organizations where culture, incentives and technology can enable groups of teachers to perform beyond the sum of their individual abilities.” The prize may be used to support expansion and replication of the innovation.

Ms. Kerr was one of five finalists selected by an independent panel of judges comprised of education leaders and a student representative. The other finalists included principal Evelyn Finn of the Lavelle Preparatory Charter School in Staten Island, NY, principal Cynthia Fowlkes of the Academy of Innovative Technology High School in Brooklyn, NY, principal Christopher Lehmann of the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, PA, and principal Shimon Waronker of the New American Academy in Brooklyn, NY.

Elizabeth Rohatyn is a champion of education and innovation. Driven by the belief that teachers are the most important school-related factor in raising student achievement, Mrs. Rohatyn joined forces with former teachers, principals and technology experts and founded Teaching Matters in 1994. Funding for the Elizabeth Rohatyn Prize for Schools Where Teaching Matters is made available by contributors to the Elizabeth Rohatyn Fund. The Rohatyn Prize trophy is a perpetual award that is passed on to the new recipient each year.

Support for the Teaching Matters’ Forum for School Principals is provided by New York Community Trust. The Prize was awarded at the fifth annual event in the series which featured an interactive presentation by Superintendent Paul G. Vallas, entitled “The Five Essential Practices for High Performing Schools.

Five Principals of Schools Where Teaching Matters

Lynette Guastaferro — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 13:43:40 +0000

Public voting has closed for the 2012 Elizabeth Rohatyn Prize for Schools Where Teaching Matters and the following five Finalists have been determined!

Evelyn Finn, Lavelle Preparatory Charter School, Staten Island, NY
Extensive and intensive training program for newly hired teachers emphasizing behavioral strategies, core content, pedagogy and more.

Cynthia Fowlkes, Academy of InnovativeTechnology HS, Brooklyn, NY
Peer observation process whereby teachers collaborate in content and grade level teams to improve student outcomes using Danielson Rubric (teacher evalmetric). Teachers regularly observe peers and make recommendations related to practice.

Rose Kerr, Staten Island School of Civic Leadership, Staten Island, NY
"Triad Model," a teacher effectiveness initiative puts three teachers in charge of comprehensive instruction of two classes, allowing them to share responsibility to analyze student performance, develop interventions and create learning opportunities.

Christopher Lehmann, Science Leadership Academy, Philadelphia, PA
Inquiry-driven and project-based approach, using tech tools to allow all members of the school community to learn - students, teachers, parents.

Shimon Waronker, New American Academy, Brooklyn, NY
Unique human capital model that incorporates a career ladder for teachers anddaily collaboration in teams led by a master teacher.

The public began voting June 13th for a principal from the New York metropolitan area that could win the 2012 Elizabeth Rohatyn Prize for Schools Where Teaching Matters. The voting narrowed down the list of ten Semi-finalists down to five and in the coming weeks the impartial selection committee will select the final winner. The winner will be announced at the 2012 Summer Forum for Principals with Paul Vallas. If you would like to register for this event please click here.

"Leading principals understand that effective teaching is the lynchpin to closing the achievement gap," said Lynette Guastaferro, Executive Director of Teaching Matters, a nonprofit educational organization that sponsors the prize. "They are rethinking time, creating effective teaming strategies, and positioning effective teachers to lead the charge. These leaders deserve recognition and they need more flexibility."

The projects launched by the finalists include: creating a career ladder where teachers advance from novice to master level; reorganizing the school day so teachers have time to collaborate; and helping teachers film their classroom instruction so that they can improve their teaching strategies.

“Participating in the discussion of innovation in New York schools reminded me once again how so many are committed to positive change,” said Fred Frelow, Program Officer for the Ford Foundation, who is one of the judges in the competition.

The Rohatyn Prize is underwritten by the Elizabeth Rohatyn Innovation Fund. Driven by the belief that teachers are the most important school-related factor in raising student achievement, Mrs. Rohatyn, a champion of innovation and education, joined forces with former teachers, principals, and technology experts to found Teaching Matters in 1994.

Is Every Teacher a Literacy Teacher?: Reading and Writing in the Content Areas

Lynette Guastaferro — Fri, 04 May 2012 18:07:35 +0000

by Dr. William L. Heller, Using Data Program Director
Cross-posted on the TERC Using Data blog

There is a growing philosophy that every teacher is a literacy teacher, a view that is becoming increasingly important as states prepare for the Common Core State Standards, which place an emphasis on content literacy.

But what does “every teacher is a literacy teacher” actually mean? Will science teachers be expected to put away the Bunsen burners and take out the Balzac? Will social studies teachers be responsible for teaching contractions alongside the Constitution? If we misunderstand the idea, we may misapply it, and it may even lead to resentment among teachers who feel they are being asked to take on another’s responsibility.

Part of the confusion may stem from the tendency to refer to the English Language Arts (ELA) class as Literacy class. I’ve done it myself. After all, that is the class where students ultimately learn how to read and write. But as we continue to examine the demands of college and the workplace, we are discovering the need to expand our understanding of literacy as a set of essential skills that are critical for success in every subject area. Teaching literacy in isolation misses the point of why we need to be literate in the first place.

The idea of reading and writing across the curriculum isn’t new. We already know that having students write in their content classes, say math, strengthens their performance in ELA assessments. But the critical shift in rethinking the idea of literacy is that we want students to read and write in math because it also makes them achieve better results in math. If they can construct a viable argument and critique the reasoning of others, they will be doing the real work of mathematicians. If they can’t, it doesn’t matter how good they are at calculating or memorizing facts.

There is no question that students need to learn a complex range of skills in reading and writing. But they also need to learn how to learn through reading and writing. When students in social studies class conduct research on current events issues and write letters to their elected representatives to express their opinions, they are exercising critical literacy skills. And yet, we would not deny that these activities are appropriate for the social studies classroom.

To further illustrate this point, imagine a hypothetical scenario in which we have the specific goal of only preparing students to be scientists. The purpose of K-12 education, in this scenario, is to make our students ready for a college experience where they will only take science courses, so that they can graduate and become scientists. They would still need to know how to cite evidence from informational texts to support an argument. They would still need to know how to write explanatory texts to convey complex information. They would still need to know how to prepare and deliver oral presentations and communicate with other scientists. World progress in science depends on literate scientists.

So if we can agree that content-specific literacy skills are vital to the work of the scientist, the historian, and the mathematician, we must then ask who is best prepared to teach these skills. Who should teach students how to write a story proof to solve a math problem? Who should teach students how to dissect primary source documents to learn about a historical period? Who should teach students how to use experimental data to construct an argument about a scientific principle? Confining literacy skills to the ELA classroom makes about as much sense as allowing students to use wooden pencils only in wood shop.

As a Using Data facilitator, I once conducted a session for all of the Data teams in one New York City school. Each Data team represented a different academic discipline. During this session, the teachers themselves answered the question about who has the responsibility to teach literacy. As we drilled down into the data for each subject area, every team except one independently discovered the exact same problem within its own content area—students were weak in the academic vocabulary of that discipline, which has a profound effect on content comprehension. And who better to teach the vocabulary of the discipline than the content experts, themselves? Interestingly, the only department to select a different student learning problem was ELA.

If students start at an early age to learn not only how to read and write, but also how to learn through reading and writing, their learning in all content areas will improve. Furthermore, they will be more prepared for college and the workplace; they will be more informed citizens and critical consumers; and they ultimately will be more prepared to become life-long learners. Is every teacher a literacy teacher? The writing’s on the wall!

TERC's Using Data is a school reform and professional development service that helps educators at all levels to understand and use data to improve teaching and learning. Teaching Matters is an official TERC partner organization, conducting Using Data institutes for New York City schools.

Rohatyn Prize for Schools Where Teaching Matters

Lynette Guastaferro — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 20:43:49 +0000

Teacher effectiveness is a hot topic these days, but lately the conversation and investment has focused on teacher evaluation. While measuring teachers’ effectiveness is a significant first step, more important will be to use this information effectively and strategically to develop, retain and reward effective teachers.

There is no question that teaching matters. Accordingly, this year’s $15,000 Elizabeth Rohatyn Prize will highlight innovations in the area of teacher capacity-building and effectiveness. Teaching Matters is seeking nominations to highlight replicable, school-based strategies that education leaders implement in this area.

Teaching Matters urges you to nominate a school principal whose leadership results in an academically rigorous and innovative learning environment. This year’s submissions will be accepted from all publicly-funded K-12 schools in the New York metropolitan area (within a 100 mile radius of New York City). The application and criteria for the Elizabeth Rohatyn Prize are available here. Teachers, parents, principals and network leaders are encouraged to submit nominations.

There are schools that inspire and develop great teachers. Do you know one?

Click Here to Nominate!

Even Nothing Can Be Something

Lynette Guastaferro — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 13:42:11 +0000

by Dr. William L. Heller, Using Data Program Director
Cross-posted on the TERC Using Data blog

There are often revelatory moments in the data inquiry process, where your analysis will lead to great insight and discovery in a way that challenges your assumptions and changes the way you think about teaching and learning in your school. There are other times when the data shows exactly what you were expecting, confirming your predictions and giving you valuable evidence in making your case to others. Many times, however, the data doesn’t show anything at all.

This can be somewhat dispiriting to an enthusiastic data team, but it doesn’t need to be. Sometimes the data may show nothing, but that’s still valuable information that puts you ahead of where you were before you looked. We don’t complain when our dentist finds no cavities, when the mechanic finds nothing wrong with our car, or when a medical test comes back negative. Similarly, in data inquiry, even a finding of nothing can really be something, if you know how to interpret what it means.

What does it mean when you find no achievement gap?

Counterintuitively, teams can be excited to find a significant difference in performance between different sub-groups within their schools. They’re not happy that a gap exists; they’re just glad that they’ve found it. But when you do the analysis and find no gap, you should be just as pleased, if not more so. Keep disaggregating the data using different criteria, but if you don’t find any achievement gaps in the end, enjoy the discovery that your school seems to be providing relatively equitable educational opportunities for all of your students.

What does it mean when testing data shows even performance across strands?

It’s a clear path to drill down into a content strand where students are clearly showing deficiency. But when strand data doesn’t provide easy answers, it’s time to start looking for pervasive problems that reach across strands. Could students be having trouble with multi-step problems in Algebra, Geometry, and Measurement alike? Are students having vocabulary issues, regardless of whether the question is asking for a literary response or critical evaluation? A deeper look within the individual strands can usually reveal more fundamental problems.

What does it mean when students leave answers blank?

While a telling distractor answer might give you insight into why students got the wrong answer, a significant number of blank answers can signal that students didn’t even understand the question. It also might indicate a problem with stamina, if students are leaving a lot of questions blank towards the end of the exam. A student guessing blindly has a one in four chance of making a lucky choice, but blank answers are often deafening in their silence.

What does it mean when surveys show ambivalence from respondents?

Surveys often measure participant attitudes using a Likert scale, a series of statements that the survey-taker can agree or disagree with to different degrees. Many researchers prefer to offer an even number of responses, so the respondent is forced to choose one side or the other. But if you neglect to include a middle option—the “No Opinion” choice—you are missing out on valuable data. The idea of a survey is not to force anyone to generate results that will be more interesting to you; the survey should be designed to collect the most accurate data possible, and that includes allowing respondents to express their ambivalence if that’s how they feel.

A data analysis that shows nothing is not the same thing as a lack of data or an inconclusive result. So the next time your hard-earned data analysis shows no results, go ahead and make a big deal out of nothing!