Standardized tests may not be popular, but one expert in educational finance says the data they generate can help focus efforts on solutions to the achievement gap.

Allan Odden, a professor of educational leadership and policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says schools that have successfully improved performance share some common traits. One of those traits is the use of test results to deploy the right resources and staff to the classrooms — and children — who need them most.

"Everybody has got to get their fingers dirty analyzing the data," Odden said in a session on educational equity at NYSUT's recent symposium on ending the gap.

While few favor the proliferation in testing brought about, in part, by No Child Left Behind, Odden said testing does provide information on what is working and what is not. Linking resources to decisions driven by hard data, school districts can raise achievement and make dramatic gains toward ending the gap.

Using data to target instruction and resources "makes teachers more efficient and more effective in what they teach," Odden said. The data should be used to identify the areas of greatest need and the most effective ways to address them. Then districts can create funding models that direct resources to elementary, middle and high schools, depending on the areas of need.

Early impact

For example, Odden noted, research shows class-size reductions have the greatest effect in grades K-3. So the resources required to alleviate crowding could best be targeted to those elementary classrooms.

Other resources, such as technology in classrooms, might be most effectively used for older students.

In addition to data-based decision-making, he encouraged struggling school districts to:

• set higher goals;
• consider new curricula;
• invite outside expertise;
• provide ongoing professional development; and
• establish a culture that accepts teachers as leaders within the school.

Teacher training is most effective when there is collaboration and when it is accompanied by follow-up coaching, according to Odden.

"Training with coaching leads to professional change," he explained. "Teacher leaders can be instructional coaches working with other teachers toward data-based decision-making and using data to change instructional practice."

In the best school districts, he said, "There is a superintendent leading at the top, a principal leading at each school and there are teacher leaders who lead and serve as instructional coaches."

— Carl Korn