You Manage What You Measure

East Penn should evaluate programs and initiatives from the last decade

You Manage What You Measure

East Penn should evaluate programs and initiatives from the last decade

photo by MART PRODUCTION via pexels.com

There have been a lot of changes in East Penn over the last several years, including a lot of significant new initiatives and programs. Are they working?

I don't know! More attention is needed to measuring the results of programs in the district. Healthy, high-quality public schools require good data to answer clear-eyed questions about what is working and what isn't. As budgets get tighter and new priorities arise, taking a close look at what is proving effective, and what might need further discussion and changes, is an essential part of being good stewards of community resources and knowing what's best for our kids.

District administrators, teachers, students, parents, and the community can't have informed discussions or make intelligent decisions about district programs and priorities if they don't have good information about what is working (and why), and what isn't (and why not). East Penn is blessed with unusually dedicated professionals who do their best every day to implement programs like those I describe below. But that doesn't necessarily mean they are all working. The best way to support not just our schools, but also those that work in them, is to always be asking questions and insist on concrete and specific information that help answer them.

Here are a few examples of decisions over the last few years that would benefit from data and public discussion of how they are working for students:

All Day Kindergarten

East Penn instituted all day kindergarten in 2018, after a lengthy process of planning and debate. Before then, most kids went to kindergarten for only half a day. The cost of implementing the program was significant; over $1 million annually to hire new teachers and run more buses. The new all-day classes also took up additional room in the elementary schools.

The cornerstone of the all day kindergarten program the district adopted was the principle of "purposeful play." The curriculum presented to the board at the time centered on encouraging these young children to play in kindergarten, rather than having traditional lessons, working to meet learning benchmarks, regular testing, etc.

We've now had all-day kindergarten for 7 school years; the original cohort of kids are in middle school. How are we doing? Is the program's central focus on purposeful play still being followed? If so, how well is it working? If not, why not? We might look at how classroom time is being spent to answer some of these questions. Or measures of child wellbeing after a year of kindergarten. Or how students who went through the all day kindergarten have fared in early grades compared to those who didn't. Documenting how the all day kindergarten program is doing now would help the district prioritize the things that are working best and look for ways to change those things that aren't working quite as well.

The Jasper Program

Emmaus High School created a new program in 2020 designed to offer a non-traditional classroom experience to students. The program was adopted based on its design around collaborative learning, developing community connections, and interdisciplinary lessons. Assignments in the program are supposed to be project-based and emphasize student responsibility and control over the questions they are asking and the ways they are learning the answers to those questions. Moving away from formal testing is an explicit part of the program's goals.

Anecdotally I've heard both positive and negative feedback from individual parents about this program. With the benefit of five years of experience now, I think we should all have more systematic information about how things are going in the program at this point. How does the depth and breadth of learning in this program compare to what other students at Emmaus High School are learning? How do educational outcomes of Jasper students compare to those attending other alternative programs, like Lehigh Carbon Technical Institution (LCTI)? What are some of the ways it has enabled new opportunities for students that wouldn't otherwise be available? What are some of the ways it has closed off opportunities? Has the program deepened partnerships between the school district and community organizations and businesses, as originally envisioned? Why or why not?

School Resource Officers

The district decided to hire a School Resource Officer (SRO) at the high school almost a decade ago now. An SRO is a police officer who has additional training working with juveniles and schools. The goal of hiring the SRO was to increase school safety by reducing violence, drug use, bullying, and other issues. Since that time, the district has invested substantial additional money into hiring security guards for the middle schools. While not SROs, the purpose of these additional hires is the same: to improve school safety.

A widely recognized best practice for school SRO programs is clear, measurable, benchmarks for success and regular assessment. Is East Penn's SRO program working? That is, have incidents of violence, drug use, and bullying gone down in the schools since investing these resources in policing? Have ordinary school infractions been escalated by SROs to the criminal justice system, the so-called "school-to-prison pipeline" documented in other cases of increasing police presence in schools? Police officers are a particularly expensive way to provide school security. And, as recent news of the SRO in Bethlehem sexually assaulting a middle school student starkly illustrates, there are risks to SRO programs as well as benefits. After a decade of investment, we should all have some data on how this investment is (or is not) paying off. Such an evaluation would allow the district to make informed decisions about whether to expand the program, or look for cheaper and more cost-effective alternatives for school security.

High School Detracking

Emmaus High School eliminated the "general track" (or GP) of high school courses in both English and social studies in 2022. The goal of the initiative was to improve equity between students by combining those who study these subjects in the general track with those who study them in the college prep track (CP), as well as improve class scheduling for all students. It was a controversial decision. High school teachers, in particular, were unusually vocal about their concerns with the negative impact detracking could have on both higher performing students and students who are struggling.

It's early days for this change. This is the first full school year it has been in effect. But given the large differences in opinion about it, I think it's worth taking initial stock of how things have gone so far. Have student schedules at the high school improved as a result of the change? Were more students able to get their first choice classes, for example? Are there fewer students sitting in large study halls multiple times a day, for example? Are students who were taking GP and CP differentiated classes doing better in the new combined classes? And is there any evidence of gains to the district's equity efforts, in the form of lower test score disparities between racial, class, or gender groups?

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If you are a parent, I encourage you to ask for concrete information about how these (and other) district programs are faring when you meet with principals or other East Penn administrators. And for others, consider emailing school board members, or even asking questions like the examples I've given above at an upcoming school board meeting.