Tuesday, August 9, 2011
CEDO565 Week 2
I've had some experience using the WINNS database prior to this class. When my summer reading team took 1st place in Wisconsin for minutes read, the local papers wanted to know if having all these students reading over the summer improved our WKCE reading scores. I have to admit, it takes a while to find my way around, the amount of data available on the database is unbelievable. After researching our district, I was pleased to find that we had the highest reading scores of districts in our area as well as our conference.
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I had kind of the opposite experience than you did. I had never used WINNS before. I was impressed with the amount of information and the various styles you can display it. That was really cool. So played around for quite a bit, checking out my district in relation to other districts.
ReplyDeleteIt made me a little sad to see everything in black and white. When I first moved up here, people told me what Neenah and Appleton called us "Metrasha". After seeing the results, I see where we got our name from. We have AWESOME teachers, but a very difficult population from low SES. Last year our big push wash reading, and we did well. Made our AYP.... but we got put on a list for our math score I think it's the yellow slip we got.
If we're going to have all of the required achievement standards....we are going to need funding to go with those mandates.
Sensei, I agree. When you look at my school district's data, it looks like we have a school of underachievers. When you compare the male and female scores, it looks like our boys don't know how to read! Very confusing.
ReplyDeleteMary, I had experience with WINSS as well. When I placed an ad in the surrounding newspapers to try to get students to open enroll into Winter, I ran a graphic that showed that Winter had higher scores than everyone. I was able to keep fooling around with the different filters and such so I could get the graphic to look the way I wanted it to. The lesson: data can be misconstrued to say anything you want it to say!