I don’t remember when Jeff Curry, Niles Community School Board, came up with the idea that the school district should publish a dashboard of data concerning the operation of the school district. It was a great idea, but day-to-day school concerns always crowded out its implementation. In case the term is not familiar, any dashboard functions like the gauges on the dashboard of a car that display the vital functions such as remaining gas in the tank, water temperature, etc.

Usually, the idea resurfaced in May or June as each school year ended. Unfortunately, that’s one of the busiest times of the school year. Even July and August are not lazy, carefree days for school administrators—far from it so it has remained on a back burner. Back burner or not–June is the month in which the members of the school board rate the superintendent’s performance. How much simpler and more accurate would that process be if there were a database, a dashboard, to which each school board member could refer. Summer would also be a good time for each parent to decide where to send their children to school. Should they send their child to Brandywine or Niles? Should they enroll their child in Ballard or Howard?

School statistics are available if one has a computer and the knowledge of where to look. The average citizen would find it difficult to ferret out pertinent details about their district school. For example, if you visit http://www.mackinac.org/depts/epi/performance.aspx?count=100&report=3&CCode1=11&DSearch1=&DCode1=11300&SSearch1=&SCode1=All+Schools&year=2009-2012&locale=All&type=All&sort=Overall+CAP+Score, you can find the Mackinac Center’s CAP 2009-2012 average scores for Niles schools. The Mackinac Center rated all schools in Niles “B” except Eastside, which was rated “D.” The long address suggests that it’s not easy to find. Who knows what a CAP score is or how it was obtained?

Another database is the state of Michigan’s top-to-bottom rankings. In this database, individual schools are ranked by percentile against other like schools for school year 13-14. Niles Senior High is ranked in the 65th percentile. Howard is ranked 64th. Ring Lardner is ranked 59th. Eastside is ranked 38th, Oak Manor is ranked 20th. Ballard is ranked in the 16th percentile. Don’t ask me any questions about the raw data because after spending some time on the Michigan state web page, I’m hopelessly confused. Its complexity is simply Byzantine. You’ll notice that its rankings don’t cover the same time and are not consistent with the Mackinac Center ratings. What is a parent to do? For that matter, what are administrators to do?

I suggest that the Niles School District publish on its web site at least the following elements by school and by grade in a dashboard: enrollment, standardized scores, reading proficiency at the end of 3d grade, # of students held back, discipline incidents, 4 year graduation rate for the high school, dropout rate, and ACT college readiness. It’s also important that this dashboard remain consistent year-to-year and prior year’s data also are published. That’s a clear indication of progress or lack thereof.

My youngest child will turn 39 next month so my interest in better public schools is not personal. In an earlier column, I indicated that Michigan’s schools underperform versus most states and other countries. If I had children in school, I would want to know as much as I could about how good the schools were. Unfortunately, the highest level of public interest usually concerns the welfare of the district’s adult employees. It’s time to focus on what’s most important. To do that, we need to shine a bright light on our schools’ most important data.

 

Michael Waldron is a retired lieutenant colonel, U.S. Army, who was born and raised in Niles. He previously served on the Niles Commu¬nity School Board of Education. He can be reached at ml.waldron@sbcglobal.net.