Equity Audit Data Analysis, Observations

African American subgroup mean lowest of all subgroups (excluding IEP only students)
Female scores higher than male mean scores for all three assessments
White student mean scores highest of all racial subgroups (excluding the 1 American Indian or
Alaskan Native student)
Economically disadvantaged students an average of 10 or more points lower than entire student
population
Gifted students average is above general student population, but some students identified as
gifted scored notably lower than unidentified students
IEP students scoring below the Proficient performance (on average) for all three assessments
American Indian or Alaskan Native makes up only 0.6 % of student population (1 student)
Mean score for all students in grades 7 and 8 falls at the Proficient performance level while the
OGT mean scores fall at the Accelerated performance levelOAA math scores and OGT scores
correlation appears to be that the student scores one performance level higher on average on
the OGT than they do on the OAA grade 7 and 8 assessments
15.7% of students performance levels dropped at least one level from OAA grade 7 to grade 8,
21.3% of students performance levels increased at least one level from grade 7 to grade 8, 63% of
students performance levels did not change
15% of students in grade 7 scored below PROFICIENT, 44% PROFICIENT
13.6% of students in grade 8 scored below PROFICIENT, 44% PROFICIENT
10% of students in grade 11 scored below PROFICIENT, 15% PROFICIENT

Equity Audit Data Analysis, Plausible Explanations
African American Subgroup: 7 of the 11 African American students whose mean fell below the
mean of the entire student population are male, males fell below the mean for females and all
students and 9 of the 11 are also in the economically disadvantaged subgroup ! cannot make
claims that race is the sole factor for low achievement levels
Males v. Females: Females have been scoring higher than male subgroups in districts at large
(several factors such as behavior, parental support, etc. could be considered as well as large
scale psychological factors impacting the male race in todays society)
White Subgroup: White student scores being highest of all racial subgroups could be attributed to
socioeconomic status (with further analysis) and/or the culture of the school favoring the white
middle class, specifically a staff population that is majority white middle class
Gifted Subgroup: Gifted students being dispersed across score levels could be attributed to an
inaccurate gifted identification assessment ! may need to re-evaluate gifted identification
assessment, should it be administered more than once? (OLSAT)
OAA/OGT Correlation: From this analysis, we could conclude that in general, students achieve
higher performance levels on the Ohio Graduation Test than the OAA grade 7 and 8 Math
assessments, on average the students score at least one performance level higher on the OGT
than on the OAA grade 7 and 8 assessments which is most likely due to content of the tests
Grade 7 v. Grade 8: At first glance, the trends appear to dip between grade 7 and grade 8 scores,
but the percentages suggest that the number of students scoring in each performance level are
fairly equivalent ! the state performance level scores dropped during the year of the Grade 8
test in this data set, which may explain the lower scores but similarity in performance levels
Student Growth: It would be helpful to compare the number of students that increase by 1 or more
performance levels from grade 7 to grade 8 with other similar districts data---63 % of our students
did not grow a performance level but this does not necessarily mean they did not show growth so
the district would need to compare with other schools to see if the majority of their students are
staying at the same performance level from year to year or moving up/down performance levels
IEP Subgroup: IEP students scoring below the proficient level, on average, may cause for
examination of each individual students IEP and disaggregated data to determine student
needs, students may not be receiving the support needed to achieve at the proficient level

Interview Protocol
What are the districts greatest strengths and weaknesses in regards to equity? Are there
specific subgroups that need to be addressed? If they are being addressed, how so?
What do you believe to be the communitys perception of equity in our schools?
Does the district consider equitable issues when hiring staff and other personnel? If so, how
and under what circumstances?
How consistent are the districts racial subgroups? Do they change year to year? If so, which
ones fluctuate?
What is the greatest misconception regarding equity in our district?
What are some next steps we could take (or are taking) as a district to become more
equitable?

Interview #1, Literacy Specialist

Racial Subgroups Socioeconomic Subgroups Transient Population
What are the districts greatest strengths and weaknesses in regards to equity? Are there
specific subgroups that need to be addressed? If they are being addressed, how so?
" Racially, our subgroups show no significant gapit is a common misconception in the
district
" Our largest population that repeatedly shows a gap in achievement is our
economically disadvantaged subgroup
o Do our racial subgroups tend to fall into this subgroup as well though?
" Yes, but when we sit down, if we are looking for causation, we attribute
the gap to economic status! many of our racial subgroups stem from
transient students
" We havent declared an act as being for a particular subgroup but we are always
keeping that in the back of our minds in every decision we make
" We have employed a new central office staff member that has been assigned to go
out into some of our most impoverished parts of the community and work with students
and parents on literacy skillsits still very new so we dont have many details yet

What do you believe to be the communitys perception of equity in our schools?
" The students and community members appear to find it difficult to relate to staff in the
district
" Many of our staff do not live in the district or they live in better parts of the district
o Ive noticed a lot of the staff that do live in the community are older,
would you agree?
" Yes, it is a struggle to balance what our district used to be and what it is
nowa lot of people are living in the past and trouble to accept the
changing demographics
" What we communicate daily is sometimes difficult to relate tohow we dress, what we
drive, a lot of these students are not seeing those same things at home
o I think about that all the time, how I hang my North Face jacket on my
chair, carry a Vera Bradley bag.while some of my students are carrying
backpacks their older siblings carried for years
" Community support varies, but for various reasonsa lot of times socioeconomic has
the greatest impact on involvement rather than racial background
o Do you feel the same is true for athletics, extracurriculars, and honors
classes?
" In athletics and extracurriculars, we are really spread out, but our higher
level courses tend to favor the middle to upper class citizens of our district,
which often are white students

Does the district consider equitable issues when hiring staff and other personnel? If so, how and
under what circumstances?
" I know of a nearby district that went through a period of time where they
were trying to hire a more diverse staff that was more of a representation
of their community, but I do not know of any great efforts we have made
as a district to achieve thatwe just want to hire someone that is
passionate and is going to be able to connect with our students, no
matter who they are
o Do you think it is a problem for all districts to employ a diverse staff?
" I do. It is the nature of the professionthats out of our control

How consistent are the districts racial subgroups? Do they change year to year? If so, which
ones fluctuate?
" The biggest problem we face in identifying subgroups is the fact that
students self-identifyone year they could register themselves as
multiracial and the next year register as African Americanwe find that
not all students accurately identify their ethnicity
o In general, it seems the percentage of African American and Multiracial
subgroups have increased in the districtwould you agree?
" Well, Ive also only been here for 2 years so it is difficult to know for sure,
but I do believe the multiracial population has increased in the past few
years

What is the greatest misconception regarding equity in our district?
" I feel one of the greatest misconceptions in our district is amongst the staff
and veteran community members that believe our lowest achieving
students are those that are just inside our district lines that arent Canton
Local kids, but our economically disadvantage population come from all
parts of the districtmany of them are Canton Local kids
o I have heard that our district lines/parts of the community have expanded
in the past decade, is this true?
" A low-income housing project brings in a large percentage of students
that have not always been a part of our district, but these kids achieve
similar to the other economically disadvantaged students that have been
a part of our district foreveropen enrollment also plays somewhat of a
part in that
What are some next steps we could take (or are taking) as a district to become more
equitable?
" We need to get to know our who better, as Schlechty would say! We
need to accept any student that walks through our doors as our kids
and stop pointing fingers at the changing demographicsthats a culture
thing, it takes time
" We are also trying to get better at identifying students through data..using
screeners and data to shape our curricula and analyze our subgroups
rather than so much qualitative measures such as teacher
recommendations that can hold some bias





Interview #2, Director of Data & Technology

What are the districts greatest strengths and weaknesses in regards to equity? Are there
specific subgroups that need to be addressed? If they are being addressed, how so?
" Within the racial subgroups, the African American male subgroup has
always stood out to be lower-achieving than other racial subgroups
o Have any programs been put into place and/or efforts made to increase
this particular subgroups achievement?
" That particular subgroup is still quite a low percentage of the student
population so I believe we make efforts individually with each student in
how we monitor their progress and differentiate within the classrooms
What do you believe to be the communitys perception of equity in our schools?
" Perception is difficult to generalize but I if I had to say a negative
perception that I have observed in the community it would be in the
racial minority perception of staff and the community in general
" The large majority of our staff are a part of the white middle class and
there appears to be a disconnect between the different parts of the
communitywe are both largely rural and urban
Does the district consider equitable issues when hiring staff and other personnel? If so, how and
under what circumstances?
" What we consider is how the staff will be able to relate to our
studentswe do not necessarily hire someone just because of their class
status or background, we just strongly believe in hiring staff that will be
able to motivate and engage all types of learners! we also look for an
understanding of poverty and how that influences education
o Have you found any trends in the staff we favor hiring as a district?
" I think it is more a matter of the teaching profession in general and who
goes into that profession rather than district control
How consistent are the districts racial subgroups? Do they change year to year? If so, which
ones fluctuate?
" Somewhat consistent, but there are a few subgroups that are such a low
percentage of the general population that they are sometimes a part of
our subgroups and other years are not
What is the greatest misconception regarding equity in our district?
" I hear people say a lot that our transient population is to blame for some
of our lower numbers but many of these students have been in and out
of the district for a long time and are coming from a variety of school
districts in the area
o Has our transient population always been what it is today?
" No, we have seen an increase in the past 5 or so years, but some of that is
due to our growing career tech programs, I think

What are some next steps we could take (or are taking) as a district to become more
equitable?
" I really believe our implementation of the RTI program will help us to
individualize learning for all students, which in turn, will hopefully increase
all subgroup achievement levels
o How long until RTI will be fully implemented at all grade levels?
" RTI is going to constantly evolve in each building, but in the next 2 years
we should see many of the programs in the school being built upon the
RTI philosophy

Survey Results






























































































































































































































































































































Analysis of Survey Results

The Process

Used Survey Monkey to create the survey
Sent email to entire high school staff (administration, teachers, aides, etc.)
Most responses were submitted within the same day
Sent an email to 8 community members (mostly parents/guardians of students I had already
been in communication with and/or parents of softball players) !From this, only 2 submitted
responses
The charts and tables above were obtained from Survey Monkey
No students were asked to complete the survey so the 1 response that is categorized as
student is assumed to be a mistake

Analysis

With 95% of the respondents being Caucasian, the responses may not be a balanced
representation of minority voices

Out of approximately 75 ALL staff members, 40 responses were submitted, ! 53% respondent
rate


It should be noted that 59.52% of respondents described the community in which they live as
suburban ! implying over half of the respondents could be considered middle class or live in
the more affluent areas of the district (this excludes a large income housing population of
students that attend schools in the district)

The highest percentage of disagreement (53.85% disagree, 17.95% strongly disagree) was with
the statement, Parent and/or guardian involvement in the school is consistent across student
backgrounds. ! implying the district may want to consider how to incorporate more
programs and/or events that are inviting to all parents/guardians and does not favor
particular groups ! In addition, it should be noted that only 15.38 % of respondents disagree
with the statement, We reach out to community members and parents/guardians of all racial
and ethnic backgrounds. ! implying the a large majority of the respondents believe the
district is making attempts to involve parents/guardians of all backgrounds without much
success


The highest percentage of agreement (74.36% agree, 20.51% strongly disagree) was with the
statement, Our communication strategies (posters, websites, etc.) are appropriate for our
diverse community. ! implying almost 95% of the respondents feel we are making efforts to
maintain diverse communication strategies through our language, use of technology, etc.
that are a benefit to all members of the community regardless of background

46.15% disagree and 2.56% strongly disagree with the following statement: Our celebrations
reflect various cultures and introduce the community to new cultures. ! implying our
celebrations of holidays and other religious-affiliated celebrations favor a particular viewpoint,
however, I believe this is true for nearly every district in the United States and may not be
unique to our district in how we are choosing to celebrate such culturally-relevant events


Plan of Action: Triangulating Teacher, Administrator, and Parent Data




















































Areas of Weakness (inferred from data analysis, district leader interviews, & staff/community survey)
IEP subgroup achievement levels
Economically disadvantaged subgroup achievement levels
African American male subgroup achievement levels
Parent/guardian involvement of minority subgroups (specifically racial & economically
disadvantaged subgroups)
Disconnect between the cultural nature of the staff and the students


Areas of Strength (inferred from data analysis, district leader interviews, & staff/community survey)
All student population achievement levels for each of the three assessments showed at
least 85% scoring at the proficient level or higher
Cultural awareness of the changing community ! making attempts to reach out to all
stakeholders
High quality assessments: ! consistently evaluating current assessments and researching
for assessments that can do more with fewer tests
Consistency across grade levels ! students scoring in predictable performance levels !
reliability of data

Plan of Action
Starting with a stated commitment to becoming a more data-driven district across all
grade levels and content areas
Evaluation of Special Services department to obtain more detailed data on IEP subgroups
! need to evaluate the process: How are students placed on IEPs? How are IEPs being
updated? Who is involved in the process? What does the assessment data tell us about
the quality of the IEP process?
Professional development needed for entire staff regarding poverty in education !
Examining our who ! How do our students feel? How are our students impacted
academically growing up in low-income homes? What are the needs of economically
disadvantaged students and how can we take steps to meet those needs?
Professional development in TestingWerks with a SPECIFIC PURPOSE and GOAL at the
TEACHER LEVEL ! teachers and staff need to be given a task-analysis that allows them to
focus on one data set at a time ! What question do we want to answer by looking at this
data?
Survey all community members and parents/guardians of students regarding involvement
in the school and how the district could improve in this area ! rather than trying to initiate
events that may draw them in, lets ask them what would draw them in! ! Use current
Superintendent Chats that are held monthly to also be a place where staff can interact
with community members not just district leaders
Celebrate more consistently the achievements of the staff and students in a way that is
data-based! #
Implement Data Teams in each building to become leaders with data analysis and
training in TestingWerks

Reflection

This work was presented to the principal at the high school in which I work. We first discussed
the data I had collected (Math OAA grades 7 & 8 and Math OGT). I explained how the data was
retrieved from TestingWerks, the data warehouse for our district, but the compilation of the data was
created in Microsoft Excel to be able to compare the three assessments. We discussed how it would
be beneficial to be able to make these comparisons within the data warehouse so we could analyze
the same data for other grade levels and be able to make more valid conclusions. He explained
how his work with data has been focused mostly on OGT data and he believes looking at data
longitudinally could be a great benefit to the district. Again, this common theme appeared, where it
seems that, as a district, we are succeeding in analyzing the data each year but need to begin to
make connections across all grade levels to be able to make more valid predictions.
We discussed how to achieve a commitment to data-driven decision making and to consider
what that should look like. Authentic data-driven decision making is an entire framework in which
teachers, principals, students, parents, central-office staff, community members, and others look
closely at performance issues, and work together as a cohesive team to make changes where
needed (Oneal, p. 2). He mentioned that the greatest challenge is to get the entire staff to take
ownership of all student achievement rather than just the students they see each day. However, I
believe if we are able to show how the data connects across content areas, such as all sophomore
student achievement, teams of teachers may begin to take more ownership of all student learning.
We discussed that we have seen progress in how teachers view their classroom assessments in the
professional development we have received on formative assessment for this school year. We have
spent delayed starts and inservices developing our understanding of assessment and the value of
formative assessment. Formative assessment, then, should really be thought of as a defensible
approach to instruction that, based on the assessment-garnered results of the instructional activities
being used, might incline teachers or students to adjust what they are currently doing (Popham,
Location 1380). We both agreed the teacher reluctance at the beginning of our work with formative
assessment has begun to fade as teachers are shifting their view of formative assessment as another
test to viewing it as an instructional tool.
In looking at the some of my suggestions under the plan of action, he believed one of the
most valuable parts we could implement at the building level is the use of data teams. We discussed
how it would be important to not just create a team of teachers that collected data but rather could
interpret and make instructional and programmatic recommendations based upon the data:
Studying data is not the same thing as taking action (Kennedy, Peters, & Thomas, Location 1968) It
would be crucial to ensure that the data teams were transparent and visible amongst the entire staff
so that they could serve as liaisons between the administration and the teachers in connecting all
the data. He also mentioned how many of the veteran teachers are not used to working with data
hardly at all and would need some training on TestingWerks and just what kind of data should be
looked at in general. We discussed some possibilities of training workshops that may occur, but I
believe the most significant sell we would first have to make is WHY we even care to look at the data
in the first place. In a recent article published in Educational Leadership regarding professional
learning the author states that those who plan for professional learning experiences, plan for
processes, not for results. They ensure that the activities in which participating teachers will engage
are job-embedded, contextually relevant, and perhaps based on results from the most recent
teacher-needs survey. Whats lacking is a clear notion of the purpose of those activities. Why are we
doing this? What do we hope to accomplish? (Guskey, May 2014) It is a common misconception
that data generalize students and forces teachers to look at their students as just a number rather
than an individual. It would be important to instill a sense of trust with data analysis before jumping
into the trainings right away. Many teachers do not trust what their data is telling them because they
believe their insight and intuition is more powerful. However, data can bring to light and confirm
many of those intuitions or may help to bring more detail to what is working and what is not working.
It is also important to sell the idea that ALL teachers must be able to competently collect and
analyze data, not just a few teachers or central office staff. In a 2009 Education Leadership article
entitled, Why Teachers Must be Data Experts the author essential changes that teachers must
make in how they approach data:
Realize that data includes more than end-of-year standardized test scores
View collecting data as a way to investigate the many questions about students,
teaching practices, and learning that arise for any committed teacher
Talk with one another about what data reveals and how to build on those revelations
(Morrison, 2008).
Many of these essential changes begin by just starting the conversation about data. As a district, we
need to collectively agree that data needs to move to the top of the priority list in our understanding
of improving student learning.





References

Guskey, T. (2014). Planning professional learning. Educational Leadership, 71(8), 10-16.
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/may14/vol71/num08/Planning-
Professional-Learning.aspx


Kennedy, K., Peters, M., & Thomas, M. (2012). How to use value-added analysis to improve student
learning: A field guide for school and district leaders. Thousand Oakes, CA: Corwin.

Morrison, J. (2009). Why teachers must be data experts. Educational Leadership, 66(4),
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/dec08/vol66/num04/Why-Teachers-
Must-Be-Data-Experts.aspx


ONeal, C. (2012). Data-driven decision making: A handbook for school leaders. Eugene, OR:
International Society for Technology in Education.

Popham, W. J. (2010). Everything school leaders need to know about assessment. Thousand Oakes,
CA: Corwin.