What Does Last Year's Data Mean for This Year's Kids?

Yesterday, I spent about 3 hours working on disaggregating end of year data to give to our staff.  I'm placing students reading scores on a scatter graph and also charting the difference between the middle-of-year scores and end-of-year scores so that teachers can see movement.  I'm also giving them over-all data, like how many average points each student has changed, what their over-all class average was on this assessment, etc.  As I am working on it, I am thinking, "This is really important and could be critical to our students' learning for next year. I wonder if everyone will understand why."
Some teachers might think, "Oh, well, that's last year's stuff. Those kids are gone.  I don't need to look at that."  But you do--for lots of reasons--but here are the two main reasons.
1) This data tells you where your strengths and weaknesses are as a teacher.
2) The data on the students you will be getting tells you where you need to start with your new class.
Let's look at these reasons a little bit more closely.
As teachers--as humans--we all have areas where we need to grow.  If you see that the majority of your class seems to be struggling in one or two areas, that's probably more attributable to you as a teacher rather than all of them as individual students. We can even look at this in  broad areas, such as fluency, accuracy, and comprehension. If you have a classroom full of speedy readers, congrats, you are awesome at teaching fluency!  I would like to tap into your knowledge of teaching fluency and work with you to help others improve in that area!  However, if you notice most of your kiddos are struggling in the area of comprehension then we need to work on that.  Luckily, you are not alone, for I am here to help you with that! So is the rest of your team and your administrators.  Isn't that awesome?  Chances are you have some strengths that you can share with the rest of us as well.  This is where that amazing buzz-word "collaboration" comes in.  You see, we don't need an administrator to come in, look at your scores and say to you, "You have got to improve in your ability to teach comprehension. Here are a list of workshops you need to go to. I will come in and watch you 45 times in the next three weeks to make sure you are doing exactly what you are supposed to be doing," etc. (That is not how my administrators roll, by the way, but y'all know what I'm talking about!) If you know your data before anyone else does, then working toward correcting the areas where you are struggling is in your hands and no one else's.  It leaves you open to be the conversation starter.  You can approach your team and say, "How are y'all teaching comprehension?  What specific types of questions are you asking? Does anyone have a great lesson for main idea?" etc.  We could get a lot more specific and look at student expectations one by one and see exactly where we need to work harder, but for the sake of this post, I think you get the idea. If you are really looking at your own data, more so than anyone else, then you will always be prepared to answer any questions that may be thrown your way.  Better yet, you will constantly be improving in those areas if you recognize that you need to.  The bottom line is, when one or two kids don't get it, that may be their fault. When the whole class doesn't get it, point the finger back at yourself because there are some changes that need to be made (assuming there's nothing wrong with the test or the way the questions were asked, etc.)  You aren't alone though and I, for one, am always happy to help teachers find resources, people to observe, books to read, etc. that will help them grow in areas where it is needed.
Let's talk about the second reason  why you need to look at last year's data.  This data has some really specific information about your new students.  Do I really expect you to take the time to look through the scores of every single one of your new kiddos?  Absolutely! Do I realize how much time that might take?  Absolutely! I always--always--looked at whatever data was available to me and made it my mission to know as much about each student as possible before school even started.  The second I knew my class list, I was in the cumulative folder closet looking at those files. If we had portfolios, even better.  Why?  This is my starting point. I'm going to forego the argument that kids lose ground over summer.  Of course they do (so do I!) but I am looking at the potential starting point--where I know they should be--soon--so that I know where we need to work and where I can help them excel.  This is critical.  If you can't get your hands on last year's data, start asking everyone you can. Last year's teacher, an instructional specialist, admin, the school secretary, whomever may have that information because it is critical to you.  You don't want to find out two months into school that the shy boy in the back is actually reading three grade levels ahead because you've just wasted two months of his time.  Likewise, you don't want to find out that you have a potential special education student that no one told you about or that Johnny is supposed to be getting ESL services but no one told your or that Sally is at-risk because she repeated kindergarten.  Is someone supposed to tell you those things?  Sure!  Does it always happen? No!  Whose ultimately responsible for these kids?  You! So get in there and make it happen.
Here's a little story to go along with my point.  My third year as a teacher, I switched school districts to Cypress-Fairbanks ISD outside of Houston and I was teaching first grade at Owens Elementary school.  Lovely campus, wonderful staff.  I didn't know a single child on the campus and I knew it was critical that I knew my kids.  Cy-Fair schools put pictures of the students inside their cumulative folders.  As soon as the principal handed out the class lists, I went into the records room, memorized names and faces and any other information I could find out about these kiddos. On Meet the Teacher night, the parents were amazed.  I knew all of the kids as they walked in the room.  I greeted them by name, shook their hands, made them feel welcome right from the beginning.  They were all apprehensive because I was new there and they didn't know me at all from the year before. This set both the students and their parents at ease. The parents were amazed.  One mom said, "How did you know who my daughter was?"  I told her I had looked at their folders because I was so excited to meet them.  From that point on this mother, and many others, new their children were safe, they were going to learn a lot, and they were with a teacher who cared about them immensely  because I took the time to know them. Wouldn't that be an amazing way to start your year off as well?
Know your students and you will know exactly what they need to learn just in time.  Find out this information from last year's data. It's critical to making sure you are at your best as a teacher and that your students are at their best as well. Besides, who needs to sit on the beach and sip a nice cold drink when you can be pouring through data like me, right? Hello?  Anyone? Anyone?

So, This is Summer. . . .

Every year, on the first day of summer vacation, I wake up confused, look around, realize the sun is up, momentarily think I am late, remember that I'm not, and attempt to go back to sleep.  Just about the time I am finally successful, either a child or a dog jumps on my bed and reminds me that, even though it's summer vacation, there's still lots of work to be done.
So, what will you be doing with your summer vacation?
I still have a ton of data to disaggregate
A guided reading library to re-build
Summer training to write
Beginning of the year training to write
A little girl who needs to practice reading every day
And of course I am thinking about how to decorate my classroom this time around
That's a lot to do for someone who is "off" for a couple of months.
The thing is, lots of people think that teachers are so lucky because they have the whole summer off, but we don't really have very long off at all and most of that time we spend working. I have a professional development to attend this Thursday.  That's three days with the fam and  then back to work for 8 hours--for free, mind you.
I'm not complaining--I signed up to go because I want to go, not because I have to.  But, my point is, teachers are almost always working, even when we're by the pool. We're thinking about our kids, this year's, next year's, every year's. We're thinking about what we can do better next time and new things we want to try.  While it is nice that we don't have to drive in to work every day at the crack of dawn for a few weeks, we are not sitting around eating Bon Bon's and watching television (much!).  Most of us are still working, a lot of the time.  While I'm not exactly sure that anyone ever actually got three months off, we certainly don't get that off now.  It's already the second week of June and we go back the second week of August, so that's two months at best.  People who say we get three months off exaggerate a bit, I'm afraid.
But I'm fine with not getting three months off. I'm ready to go back after about three weeks.  Why?  Because I love my job. I miss the kids. I miss the adults.  I miss having responsibilities other than the normal household stuff I have to do year round anyway.  I love the challenge of the new school year. My principal mentioned the other day, we work in one of the only professions that has built-in "do-overs."  That's not exactly what she said, her take was more eloquent, but you get the picture.  Don't like the way something went last year, guess what?  You get to start all over in a couple of months and try again.  That's awesome.
Teaching is exciting and rewarding. It's challenging and exhausting and it's the only profession where you still get to have recess everyday. It may also be the only profession where you can run down the hall and grab a ketchup packet if you forget yours at lunch, but with the unusual and crazy comes the amazing wonder of seeing a child learn a concept for the first time.
The guy who said the three best things about teaching are June, July, and August got the August part right, that's for sure.
I will continue to post from time to time over the summer but if you are too busy enjoying your family, sleeping in, spending time at the beach, and watching the sunset to read, that's okay. I'll be here when we go back in the "fall."
Take care!