Our community and school district are inundated with data. There is no shortage of test scores, benchmarks, facts, figures, percentages, ups and downs, and growth models in the business of education. And for that, I am grateful.
In the absence of relevant, timely data, we as a school system and as educators, whether in the classroom, the administrative office or the boardroom, are unable to identify our pitfalls, student struggles and educational gaps or conversely, know when a program, strategy or initiative is effective and working well.
Data, my friends, is a good thing. And as we examine our data, we look to other school systems, nationally and locally, and attempt to compare and contrast our student success to that of other young people across the Central Savannah River Area (CSRA).
If it were simple, I’d submit our student data trends, post them here, there and everywhere and wouldn’t be writing an editorial on a late Thursday afternoon in hopes to make sense of it all.
It’s not simple, but I hope to clarify it somewhat – it’s apples to oranges. We’re all familiar with that idiom, right? We have a shared understanding of the premise that some things are not comparable by the same criteria and when asked to do so, we stop and say: “That’s apples to oranges.”
Recently, we released results from our Graduating Class of 2016, a class where for the first time in our state, all students had the opportunity to have their aptitude for college and careers assessed.
Last year’s ACPSD graduates, 1,553 in number, had their post-secondary preparedness for college measured with the ACT and their aptitude for career readiness measured through the ACT WorkKeys.
By providing all students the opportunity, the District’s ACT composite scores declined a little. Is that decline OK? Not to me. Any regression in student achievement must be investigated; moreover, the superintendent frequently articulates a lofty expectation – “increased participation and increased performance.”
The cost of the ACT is approximately $57. Thankfully, in South Carolina, the cost of a college admissions test will no longer be a barrier to students’ seeking to advance their post-secondary pursuits.
I am proud of that because all students deserve the opportunity to follow their dreams. If a family’s inability to pay stood in the way of a student being assessed for college previously, it’s shameful. And we’ll take the hit with other South Carolina schools as we stand together to demonstrate our shared belief that all students deserve the opportunity to access post-secondary training while advancing their pursuits. All Means All.
Our state was bold with a move to a nationally-recognized, college readiness admissions assessment and an industry-recognized portable work-based credential for every student. Doing so meant our District may and did take a hit with our ACT composite scores and has the potential to take other hits as our student success is compared to that of neighboring school systems in our region.
Six hundred and ninety-one students in Richmond County and 570 in Columbia County were tested on the ACT. These self-selecting students were no doubt college-bound and made up an elite portion of those two districts’ top students. Aiken County tested more graduates than those two neighboring districts combined.
Do you see the distinction? It’s apples to oranges. Context is important.
But, if we must compare, Richmond and Columbia County’s combined 1,261 top college-bound students to ALL of Aiken County’s 1,553 Class of 2016 grads, the comparison is actually not so bad, and maybe even a little encouraging.
To embrace the challenge of preparing students to be productive, creative and collaborative in our community and world, South Carolina has restructured instructional feedback and embarked upon an innovative and inclusive approach to student assessments.
Our ultimate goal is to prepare our students for post-secondary success; our new assessment system aligns with that goal and will provide students and families with a clear understanding of their unique ability to thrive in college and/or a career.
ACPSD is an educational system grounded in the philosophy that All Means All. The opportunity for all students to take the ACT is definitely a contributing factor in the more than 25 percent increase in the number of our graduates accepted to a two- or four-year college (79.6 percent, up from 51.8 percent the previous year).
All opportunities should be available to all students, not just the top two quartiles of students and families who can afford for their children to be tested using a $57 college readiness assessment.
The point is, both apples and oranges are great. Students have the opportunity for a wonderful K-12 education on both sides of the river.
But when comparing the two, I invite you to peel the skin back a bit and sink your teeth into the data a little further than the skin’s surface. The numbers simply are not the same. It’s apples to oranges.
Merry Glenne Piccolino is Director of Communications for the Aiken County Public School District.
Column appeared in The Aiken Standard & Augusta Chronicle on Sunday, September 11, 2016