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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2009 > September > 24 > Entry
Guest column: State relies on each district to provide, check its data
This column was written by Deborah Delisle, Ohio’s superintendent of public instruction.
Re the Dayton Daily News editorial, “School data means nothing if it’s wrong,” Aug. 25: The Ohio Department of Education absolutely agrees that the data-collection process must provide an accurate presentation of what’s occurring in schools.
Each year, the department collects more than 400 unique pieces of information from 1,045 individual entities, including public school districts, community schools and educational service centers. This information is critical for calculating the amount of state funding schools receive, compiling performance accountability metrics for state report cards, complying with No Child Left Behind, and meeting state reporting requirements, as well as for reports on which federal funding is dependent.
We do rely on these entities to report information through our data-collection system.
A series of checks and balances exists to ensure the information reported is as accurate as possible. Throughout this process, we rely on the reporting entities to verify their information.
Some of the checks conducted are basic. For example, if no data is reported, or if an analysis shows that 100 percent of students have been reported in one category, these issues raise a flag. The reporting entity is made aware of the possible issue and reviews the information.
Other checks involve reviewing trends over time to determine if there is a spike or dip in a particular element.
Again, we alert the reporting entity that there may be an issue, ask it to investigate and confirm the data, and then we readjust the report as needed.
The expulsion data referenced in the editorial is evaluated by several checks: one for no reported information, one that looks at changes from previously reported numbers, and a check that looks for high expulsion rates.
We did notify the Dayton school district on several occasions, highlighting all potential data issues. The department has no way of knowing if the information is incorrect. We can only ask that districts check what they have submitted.
In addition to checking data, the department has worked with the General Assembly to obtain the authority to initiate enforcement actions when issues go uncorrected. Recently, the education department was authorized to withhold funds, require corrective action plans and, in exceptional cases, revoke licenses when misreporting occurs.
In 2008, the department of education required 236 corrective action plans from entities that did not meet data submission requirements, most of which also had temporary financial penalties applied. We are monitoring entities with corrective action plans.
In addition to mistakes that have been made, the editorial also pointed out a recent incident involving test scores that were allegedly changed by a school district official. It is correct that schools are responsible for reporting test scores. The reason is that schools may challenge test scores of individual students and, if the scoring company finds a mistake, the school would need to correct that score. There is a check run against what the school submits to the education department and what is received initially from the testing vendor.
Too many changed scores in a particular district will raise a flag.
In the case highlighted, the changes that were allegedly made did not meet the threshold needed to generate a flag. However, it is also important to note that someone in the district alerted us to the matter.
An overwhelming majority of Ohio’s educators are honest. The data is not collected or reported in a vacuum, and as multiple individuals in a district have the opportunity to review the information, they are often the best defense when issues like this occur.
Ohio has a well-regarded data-collection system. Even with this acclaim, it is not a perfect system, and mistakes happen. However, with each of these instances, we learn something and look for ways to improve.
Practically speaking, it’s unlikely any system that collects as much information as ours does will be completely error-free — but that is what we strive for.
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