Deciphering the Data

Deciphering

THE DATA

Office of School Improvement Workshop Helps Schools Analyze Data

Brock Turnipseed

Data is critical in helping schools design plans that best meet the needs of their students. However, these plans can miss the mark without access to the proper data or the ability to understand the picture the data is painting.

The Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) Office of School Improvement (OSI) helped Comprehensive Support and Improvement (CSI), Targeted Support and Improvement (TSI) and Additional TSI (ATSI) schools better understand data by piloting an Interventions 101 training this spring in conjunction with the Mississippi State University Research and Curriculum Unit.

The training, held in three

Opposite page: Interventions 101 attendees collaborate on improvement plans during a May training in Biloxi. Top: Interventions 101 training attendees at the Mississippi State University Research and Curriculum Unit in Starkville listen as Dr. Dana Seymour, a program evaluator for the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE), guides them through understanding trends in data. Bottom: Dr. Seymour leads an Interventions 101 training in Biloxi for the MDE Office of School Improvement. The trainings help schools targeted for improvement better understand data and use it to guide their improvement plans.

monthly sessions in Starkville, Canton and Biloxi, focused on finding evidence-based interventions for the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Dr. Dana Seymour, a program evaluator at MDE, led the training and said all educators do not fully understand the terms strong, moderate and promising evidence outlined by ESSA.

Seymour has held this training for larger audiences, but focusing on these identified schools allowed the sessions to target the specific subgroups they are trying to reach in their improvement plans.

“I’ve been to the trainings and heard this before, but I did not really digest (the information) in the same way I did in this smaller setting,” Noleen Clark, previous OSI coordinator of school improvement programs, said. “It brought it to life and helped in understanding it better.”

Training to utilize data for building capacity and improving instruction is one support offered to CSI, TSI and ATSI schools.

Schools are identified for CSI if they rank in the lowest 5% of Title I

Above: Seymour leads Interventions 101 training attendees in Canton through a discussion on determining who is responsible for analyzing data.

schools or have a graduate rate less than or equal to 67%.

Schools were identified for TSI because their subgroup is in the lowest 50% of overall accountability index, is in the lowest quartile of three-year average gap-to-goal and has scores in the lowest quartile of three-year improvement toward gap-to-goal closure.

ATSI schools have a three-year average subgroup performance at or below that of all students in the lowest-performing schools (i.e., the bottom 5% of Title IA schools).

According to Dr. Sonja Robertson, OSI executive director, the Interventions 101 pilot allowed for training that targeted the identified schools’ individual needs.

“It was important to try to hone in on specific components or aspects of data analysis and look at what the evidence is telling them based on their specific intervention and what their actual outcomes are looking like at that given time,” Robertson said.

The training adds another layer of evidence-based intervention the schools can use to impact their areas of need. These schools have been using funding to implement evidence-based interventions since being identified for school improvement between fall 2018 and fall 2019.

Because the sessions built off each other, Robertson said schools were asked to commit to all three sessions and to send the same team to each training.

The first session, held in March, focused on examining data for determining what needed implementing. “When they came in, they were very much like, ‘We need to improve all of our reading scores,’” Seymour said. The data helps you focus so you can “We started looking at the select some high-yield strategies. data, and we said, ‘ActualWithout knowing exactly where the ly you don’t. It’s your stuhighest areas of need are, you could dents who have identified special needs who are the be throwing a lot of time and money population you really need on a peripheral problem. to focus on.’” - Dr. Dana Seymour Seymour found it not only important to show the schools how to analyze the data, but also to have it in a format they could analyze. Numerical data in a pivot table made interpreting the data difficult, but that same data presented in a visual format made the information and trends stand out. A better understanding of the data helped the following month when the schools discussed research literacy, where to find interventions and how to know what is needed.

Participants work through an activity during an Interventions 101 training in Biloxi.

“The data helps you focus so you can select some high-yield strategies,” Seymour said. “Without knowing exactly where the highest areas of need are, you could be throwing a lot of time and money on a peripheral problem.”

Seymour said schools spend money on resources and programs that fail because they haven’t properly interpreted the data and identified the problems. Attendees brought programs they were considering purchasing, and they could do thorough research into those programs and evaluate the claims versus the cost.

Those decision-making tools were applied in the final session when districts created their individual implementation plans.

“You spent this time looking at your data and finding interventions with good evidence to support that they’re effective, but if you don’t implement it well, it will fail,” Seymour said. “The third session basically examined how each phase of an implementation looks. Session two gave them the tools to make a decision, and they had to come to session three with an intervention in mind so we could write a plan to implement it.”

The smaller sessions allowed them to leave with a more individualized plan they could take back to their districts.

“We have a lot of turnaround where we have to send (the improvement plans) back. But in these trainings, we talked about the strategies they are funding and the goals they’re reaching for with those strategies,” Clark said. “They must identify the evidence level and the research that backs it. Those were the things that were brought out and refined in this process.”

As OSI looks to hold the training again in the future, Robertson said if they can help the schools they serve better understand their data and improve their outcomes, then “it’s well worth it.”