Note: This is reconstructed from this op-ed (also archived here) with corrected links and images.
At a recent Montclair NJ BOE meeting, there was a bit of an uproar as the superintendent reported on a performance gap larger than anyone had understood it to be. Her report appeared to be a direct contradiction to previous Academic Achievement Reports.
The district has placed both this and last year's reports online. Having looked at both, I think I finally understand. The understanding, however, isn't particularly satisfying.
This year's report shows comparisons over many grades. Last year's report shows a much more limited set. And, in fact, those few included in last year's report are - from what I have discerned - the sets with the smallest displayed gap.
For example, last year's report shows the 8th grade NJASK Language Arts (LAL) results. The gap between Montclair's General Education population and Economically Disadvantaged population is 17% in 2011. This shows a steady decrease from a gap of 43% in 2004. More, results of this test trend generally upward for all populations from 2004-2011.
A racial breakdown is also provided for the 8th grade NJASK Language Arts results, where the gap between African-American and White is 14%. Again, this number shows relatively steady improvement since 2004.
A second data set is also provided in last year's report: the 8th grade NJASK Math results. It is presented in tabular form:
The gap would have been obvious had the data been graphed as the 8th grade NJASK Language Arts was graphed. It was not.
The only other results graphed in a fashion that makes the gap clear is the 11th grade HSPA Language Arts results:
Also missing for this 11th grade data is a breakdown by economic status. The new report shows a 2011 gap between economically disadvantaged and non-economically disadvantaged in these results of 15%.
This year's report makes gaps much more clear for all available results. For example, the gap between economically disadvantaged and non-economically disadvantaged students in 2011 exceeded 30% in some cases:
There is other disturbing data appearing in this year's report that were absent from last year's. For example, there is the results from the 5th grade NJASK Language Arts:
However, this exposes a problem with the new report. Though it is thorough in its inclusion of many result sets, positive and negative, these results all lack the historic depth that lets us see those results in a wider context. For example, while the results from the 5th grade NJASK Language Arts raise great concern, it would be helpful to know whether this worsening trend is only since 2009 or if it extends further back. That additional context can help us determine whether we're looking to fix a problem that has occurred only in the last few years, or if this is something that we've never done well.
Now that we have this data, the question hanging before us is: what do we do now? First, I believe that we need to avoid any shoot the messenger response. As a town, we should be grateful that the new administration has provided to us this more accurate picture of the performance of our district in its responsibility to fully educate all of our students. In that one small respect, we can see this as good news. If we're to navigate a path towards improvement of that education, then one absolute requirement is a proper and complete understanding of from where we're starting. We now have a more complete understanding of this than we had previously.
Were we misled by the previous administration? It's not possible to assert definitively that the information presented was cherry-picked in a fashion that obscured the district's performance. Yet it is also difficult to avoid that conclusion. We citizens should be especially sensitive to this. Those of us that have been following the budgeting process for the district over the past few years, most notably including the controversy over the excessive excess fund balances, are aware that that too was an example of incomplete information being provided by the district.
I have argued in the past that one of the results of the questionable budget numbers was to effectively neuter the oversight of the district by our representatives, the members of the Board of Education. It makes little difference, for example, that the BOE might mandate a 10% cut in spending for Central Office if the budgeted numbers for spending on Central Office are padded by 15%.
Still, reflecting on whether these omissions in previous budgets or academic performance reports were deliberate or not may do little to help us today. This does tell us, however, what our second response to this should be. We citizens must be more proactive and demanding than before in our oversight of the school district. Even if we assume the best of intentions from the professional administration, we must remain vigilant. While this falls most directly on our BOE members, we must keep in mind that these are unpaid volunteers, little different from the rest of us. We cannot simply abdicate this to them and hope for the best.
One example of how we can do this is that we must seek out missing information. This may not be easy; it is not always obvious what is not being said. In the case of academic performance, for example, the administration must be asked to extend its otherwise improved reporting further back in time so as to provide that additional context the new reporting currently lacks.
Another example may be found in the new budget book, where headcount numbers are no longer made available. These should be returned to the book. In addition to providing us with a crucial piece of information, this also acts as a checkpoint useful to the administration. There was an error in the line item associated with the salaries for elementary school librarians, for example, that was brought to the administration's attention by a question from the audience at a BOE meeting. This would have been more easily caught had the headcount number also been provided.
Still another example arose at last week's Board of School Estimate (BOSE) meeting, where another member of the audience asked about the budgeting for the Adult School within our school district's budget. It turns out that the Adult School serves a population only 40% of which is actually from Montclair. Yet our school district is required to cover any shortfall in the Adult School's budget. We were told that, over the past few years, there has been no such shortfall. But we need to remain vigilant that our district's funds are actually spent on citizens of Montclair (though this does represent a good opportunity for shared services with the other towns that we serve with our Adult School). Recall that, in the past, the district has paid for benefits for Adult School employees.
That excellent inquiry from a member of our community was an unfortunately rare example, though, with too few of us spending the time to hold our district accountable for its dual responsibilities of providing an effective education to our students and to do so in a cost-effective fashion. This evening, our new superintendent will be providing a presentation on what she learned from her Listening Tour of town. During the budget process, she has been provided us with some insight regarding how she intends to improve the quality of education in town, placing greater emphasis on both acquiring and nurturing education talent within the district. Hopefully, this presentation will further extend that insight, letting us see more of how she plans to have our district meet its responsibilities to our students and to all of Montclair.
I hope to see many from our community there, at 6:30 in the High School Auditorium.