BY TALI ISRAELI
Staff Writer
MARLBORO – In an effort to meet the superintendent’s goals for the year, the Board of Education has approved the implementation of a database program that will track students’ success rates.
According to Superintendent of Schools David Abbott, one of his goals for the year was to budget for and install a reliable and secure program that will track data across schools, students, teachers, school years, assessments and student groupings.
The program will track information such as students’ biographical data, demographics, classroom instruction and achievement data, school faculty, user data and attendance.
According to information provided by the school board, Pearson Inform is a Web-based data analysis tool that enables administrators to easily aggregate and disaggregate their data based on the federal No Child Left Behind Act and state requirements. Administrators can view performance data at the district, school, classroom and student level against key yearly progress areas.
According to Abbott’s stated goals, Pearson Inform is a cost-effective system that yields critical information over time that is needed to drive improvement and accountability in the Marlboro K-8 school district.
Last month a representative of Pearson Inform attended a board meeting in order to present the data program and its benefits to the board and the public.
According to the presentation, the system scores a variety of student and assessment information including student demographics, standardized test scores and district test scores.
Using easy-to-view graphs and charts of student achievement and classroom performance, districts acquire the capability to quickly and accurately assess student progress against standards, use that data to diagnose student learning needs and target instruction to address those needs, according to the information presented to the board.
During the presentation, numerous sample charts were shown to relay what type of information can be tracked using the Pearson program. Those charts included the following:
• Compare all schools, all students and all subjects;
• Compare one or more schools on selected criteria;
• Compare the same test over time;
• Compare student progress for selected teachers;
• Disaggregate by selected demographics;
• See pop-up lists of students scoring in a selected range;
• Compare how course grades correlate with test scores.
According to the presentation, students can be grouped by grade level, limited English students in the English As a Second Language program, at-risk students, special education students, gifted and talented students, athletes, students in the marching band and students in intervention groups.
Pearson Inform allows administrators to cross reference those groups and a student’s success rate with other variables including ethnicity, students who receive free or reduced price lunches, gender, age, instructional setting, grade level and low achieving students.