Sometimes in education, we get too caught up in labels. We are beginning to work on our "annual report" that we publish for our patrons every December. We list out many things from how many miles our buses drive a year to how many breakfasts we serve to how our students are doing on state and national assessments.
We also include demographic info on our students to include what percentage of our students are enrolled in special education, how many qualify for free/reduced meals, and how many are classified as "mobile" by being in two or more school districts in a year. It is here that we need to be careful about our expectations and actions.
School districts today have access to more student achievement data than ever before. We can tell on a monthly basis what kind of progress students are making in all kinds of areas. We disaggregate data to compare this subgroup to that one. We analyze results through a myriad of factors. Are they on grade level? Are they showing ample growth? How do they compare to the state and national average? Are they just "meeting" or are they "exceeding" standards? It's all good if used the right way.
It's important to crunch the numbers and see how different groups of students are doing, don't get me wrong. Do you have a gap in math achievement between males and females? Are special education students showing the same yearly growth as their non-SPED peers? These are all extremely important! Analyzing achievement data helps us make important curriculum adjustments. It helps mold our instructional initiatives.
It's just that I want all educators to be careful with their "expectations" when it comes to disaggregated group labels. The most obvious one to me is those students that qualify for free or reduced school meals. Right at 45% of the state's students do qualify for free or reduced school meals. In York, the percentage is over 46%.
I'm here to tell you that students in this category should not be limited in their achievement. They should not have lower expectations. There are numerous factors that go into whether or not students qualify for free/reduced meals. Many of the bet students I've ever had in Kansas or West Point or Franklin or York were on free/reduced meals. Many earned an ACT score of 29 or higher. Many were on the honor roll.
We need to have high expectations for all students. We need to have high expectations for all faculty and staff. We simply cannot put a ceiling on a kid's potential because of a label. Kids will more often than not rise to the level of expectations we have in them. We need to believe in them and support them....one and all.
