Schools are just now getting back to class, but the nation’s report card is already out. And it’s not great news.
According to the Nation’s Report Card, an annual assessment of student achievement delivered by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), reading and mathematics scores declined during the COVID-19 pandemic, something many feared and expected would happen.
According to their 2022 analysis, “Average scores for age-9 students in 2022 declined 5 points in reading and 7 points in mathematics compared to 2020. This is the largest average score decline in reading since 1990, and the first ever score decline in mathematics.”
Now is our chance to reverse these trends, and get our students back on track.
But we don’t have to wait until 2023 to get the “nation’s report card” — and we shouldn’t.
Early Detection and Prevention
Gone are the days when parents and students would wait breathlessly at the end of a quarter, semester or school year to see how well a child performed in school. We can access grades in real time, in most cases, by logging into a district’s learning management system and pulling up the student’s grades.
Schools, districts and ISDs should have that same ability. And many do.
There’s no reason we should assess our nation’s “report card” annually, when we now have the ability to do so in real time, at any time, and in no time at all!
With so much at stake — from educational outcomes to per-pupil funding — shouldn’t district administrators have real-time, up-to-the-minute assessment capabilities to see if our schools, teachers and students are passing with flying colors, middling around the peer average, or even receiving failing grades?
Also from the 2022 report:
Exploring student group performance at the lower (25th percentile) and higher (75th percentile) performance levels provides additional insight into the score declines for selected student groups. In 2022, there were no increases compared to 2020 in the scores for any of the selected student groups performing at either the 25th percentile or at the 75th percentile in both long-term trend reading and mathematics. Scores were lower for nearly all selected student groups at the 25th percentile in mathematics. In reading, scores declined for most selected student groups at the 25th percentile compared to 2020, with some exceptions. For example, reading scores for students performing at the 25th percentile declined for those students who attended suburban schools. In addition, reading scores at the 25th percentile declined for those students who attended schools in the South.
– National Assessment of Educational Progress
That’s not a report card that any parent would welcome of their own student. And had that parent seen warning signs throughout the school year, by monitoring their child’s grades weekly, perhaps something could be done to improve that outcome before it ever came to pass.
So it is with districts. We have comprehensive, real-time data on school districts nationwide, allowing districts to monitor and assess student progress (or decline) at a district level, down to the individual building level, down further to the classroom level, and even down to the individual student level.
The Munetrix Academic Module 2.0 provides districts and schools with a unique, holistic platform that empowers districts to analyze all of their data with a single log-in and destination, supporting horizontal succession planning, building institutional knowledge, and workflow management all in one place.
To see how the Academic Module can help in our battle against past and future learning loss, join us a for a free Webinar on Tuesday, October 4th at 2:00 p.m. eastern. Remember to register even if you can’t attend live, to be sure to receive the video replay to watch at your convenience.
The Time to Act is Now. And Then. And Always.
What if we had an “early-detection warning system” that could report in real time how school districts, teachers, and students are performing? One that would provide real-time data, at any time, and all the time?
Imagine a single tool that could not only alleviate burdens of time and workload, but also improve your ability to accelerate academic outcomes and effectively educate and monitor the progress of “the whole student”—academically, emotionally, socially, demographically, and socio-economically—all with a single, easy-to-use interface.
You don’t need to use your imagination. All you need is to take a tour of the Academic Module 2.0.
The Munetrix Academic Module 2.0 is the most comprehensive data analytics solution for educators in one suite of apps, harvesting and contextualizing publicly available data and privately generated data in one powerful combination. The Academic Module 2.0 provides districts and schools with a unique, holistic platform that empowers districts to analyze all of their data with a single log-in and destination, supporting horizontal succession planning, building institutional knowledge, and workflow management all in one place.
Let’s not wait a whole year for the next annual report card, only to receive disappointing news, helpless to do anything about it…when we can assess, report and mitigate in real time.