• We keep seeing tables of data without any interpretation.
  
  
• The data presentations we do find are too limited.

In some ways this makes sense.  The purpose of "public disclosure" is to provide information.  But if we're going to have a genuine conversation about closing the Achievement Gap, we need to figure out how to address two central contradictions in Minnesota. 

• On the one hand, we outscore the nation by several measures.  On the other, we have one of the largest Achievement Gaps in the nation. 
  
  
• On the one hand, children do well in Minnesota by several measures.  On the other, they're losing ground.

And if we're serious about closing the Achievement Gap, we need to base reform efforts on what the data shows about both.

See how Minnesota fares on national indicators for Data Quality (click on each element) - National Center for Educational Accountability Data Quality Campaign.

Additional Resources

Winter 2006 - Getting Ruby a Quality Public Education: Forty-Two Years of Building the Demand for Quality Public Schools through Parental and Public Involvement - Providing data is essential to a civic framework of accountability. Reflecting on the early discussions of ESEA, it is clear that while Kennedy would have supported the development of a data system, data and information for him were not an end but a means and a tool by which parents could pressure for change. In this regard, NCLB is out of kilter. Even when information is reported, it is often reported without explanation or interpretation [emphasis added], Public Education Network.

July 2005 - Examining the Meaning of Accountability: Reframing the Construct - A study into the meaning of “accountability”—from the perspectives of parents and other community members, Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL).

"Members of the Spanish-speaking focus groups provided an interesting way to frame these two facets of accountability when they distinguished between education accountability and school accountability. For them, school accountability is centered on shared responsibility; for a school to be successful, all stakeholders need to work together. On the other hand, education accountability is about teachers and schools being responsible for the education of their children and being responsive to student and parent needs."