The obfuscation of student data

11 Sep The obfuscation of student data

By Dale Chu

There’s a long list of grievances when it comes to standardized testing. Among these are the glacial pace of returning results to parents, the politics of setting cut scores, and the user unfriendliness of state report cards. But perhaps the most foundational sticking point is what parents experience when it comes to the protocol of receiving their child’s test scores. This is especially important given that ninety percent of parents think their kids are at or above grade level (the actual number is closer to fifty percent). Bridging the gap between perception and reality requires parents to be bought in to state assessments and the information they provide, and that buy-in arguably begins the first time a parent sees his/her child’s score report, something I was able to do last month vis-à-vis my daughter’s results.

In a peculiar twist, I almost didn’t receive them. Following a meet and greet with her new teacher, we were heading out the door when out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of someone sitting next to a nondescript milk crate, upon which was affixed a sign that said something to the effect of, “Test scores here.” Many parents likely filed out that day without noticing or giving much thought to the lady sitting by the box, but I was not one of them, having waited since last April—when my daughter was initiated into the state testing regime as a third grader. The moment of truth had finally arrived and never would I have imagined it being such an anticlimactic footnote.

In hindsight, my experience was probably better than most. When the lady by the box handed me my daughter’s score report in August, parents in at least thirty states had yet to receive theirs. And unlike many who find their kid’s results crumpled or buried at the bottom of his/her backpack, my daughter’s printout was without any wrinkles or folds. On the one hand, the low-key way I received the data suggests that her school doesn’t overemphasize the role of state testing (a good thing!), but on the other it seems like there should be a happy medium between that and completely underselling them. I can hardly fathom the variation across the nearly 2,000 schools in Colorado to say nothing of 100,000 schools nationwide.

So, what about the score reports themselves? Overall, they were relatively clear and easy to understand. Printed on the report was a QR code, which linked to a video titled “Understanding Your Student’s [State Assessment] Results.” In Colorado, these videos are customized on a five-point scale depending on how a student performs. For all these helpful features, however, there was a lot to be desired. Candidly, it’s hard for me to imagine most parents spending much time with the printed reports let alone the video—in large part because neither is particularly user-friendly or interesting to read/watch. The silver lining is that parents nonetheless strongly support standardized testing, but states could do a lot more in working with schools and districts to help parents understand and apply the information afforded by their student’s data.