UTILIZING DATA: Big data could help tailor resources for low-income students, if only educators utilized the information effectively. So argues Harold O. Levy, executive director of the nonprofit Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, in “Education Officials Flunk Statistics 101” over at The Wall Street Journal.
Levy argues that information from big data--including statistics on truancy, retention, summer school and college graduation rates--should play a larger role in conversations about how to better understand and help low-income students. He writes, “It’s rare to find a school administrator who is comfortable parsing statistics or stays ahead of the academic literature. So these insights go undeveloped, and students who could be saved are not.”