A report on education data from the Data Quality Campaign shows the majority of states are doing a bad job sharing data with the public.
And Delaware is no exception.
First State education policy fellow Atnre Alleyne worked for the Harvard's Strategic Data Project for four years – including 2014 - when Delaware received an award for its data-collection capabilities.
“What that proves is that we have the data capability to do this," Alleyne said.
And by “this” what he means is making sure the data collected is easily accessible and transparent.
For their Show Me the Data report, Data Quality Campaign Executive Vice President Paige Kowalski says the group measured the number of clicks it took them to find data required under the No Child Left Behind Act – and new data required under the Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA.
“That data may be there," Kowalski said. "What we’re trying to communicate is we couldn’t find it. And the bigger issue is: why is it so hard to find? And if it is there, what can we do as a state – if it’s that hard to find, what can we do to make it easier.”
Delaware only reported two of eight federally required education reporting measures in its state’s report card.
And as Kowalski says, Delaware hasn’t begun capturing new data required under ESSA.
“Only one state is disaggregating their student performance data by military kids," Kowalski said. "And while that’s a new requirement that hasn’t even gone into effect yet, it starts a longer conversation – a broader, more important conversation – about why were we not reporting on this?”
In addition to requiring states to track school performance of military kids, ESSA also requires data collection for foster kids and homeless students.
45 states – including Delaware – also only provided data in English.
