Tracking students throughout time

[Marc LeVine]

I know that Publius criticized the SMART program some time ago, but metrics are important in almost everything we do and this information can be helpful - IF INTERPRETED AND USED PROPERLY.

Marc

Tracking students throughout time
Wednesday, November 29, 2006

By LILLIAN M. ALEMAN
of The Montclair Times

Fairly soon, information for the Montclair School District’s more than 6,000 students will be uploaded to an on-line database for the purpose of tracking the youngsters’ educational careers.

The N.J. Department of Education (DOE) has mandated that by Dec. 18, school districts in New Jersey submit information for each of its students, including their names, date and city of birth, gender, ethnicity, and race. In total, there are 38 pieces of information that would accompany each student’s record. About five of the 38 pieces of information needed are optional health-related questions.

The reason behind the mandate is due to a new program called New Jersey Standards for Measurement and Resource for Training (NJ SMART), which was initiated several years ago. According to the NJ SMART Web site, www.nj.gov/njded/njsmart/, the program was implemented to support tracking of student academic outcomes.

“It’s going to tell you so much more about how well schools are performing, what kinds of students have what kinds of needs, and much more besides just satisfying the requirement of No Child Left Behind,” said Richard Vespucci, spokesman for the DOE. “Right now, we don’t have a systematic process to track students. We don’t know if a kid moved from another state. This will give more precise answers about student mobility.”

Although Superintendent of Schools Frank Alvarez said the school district expects to fully comply with the mandate, he did say that there are issues of confidentiality that the school district is concerned about.

“Yes, there are issues of confidentiality and where this information is being stored, who has access to it and now, test scores that a student takes in third grade will live on in some central data warehouse forever,” Alvarez said. “On the surface, it makes a lot of sense, but on the other hand the issue of confidentiality is problematic.”

The information will be uploaded to the NJ Smart Web-based portal, which was implemented by the Public Consulting Group (PCG), a private company working with the DOE.

Vespucci said the firm was hired because the department itself didn’t have the resources to work on the implementation of NJ Smart.

“They are doing it because we don’t have the resources. They are in effect acting as the DOE. In their contract, anything they do becomes ours,” Vespucci said. “We have full faith that this organization will act in full accordance with the contract.”

Once school districts submit student data to the NJ Smart portal, the data will be used to establish a state-issued student identification number for each student. According to NJ Smart documentation, districts would then be required to track, use, and manage the state-issued student identification.

For more information about NJ Smart, go to www.nj.gov/njded/njsmart/

Contact Lillian M. Aleman at [e-mail]

[Libyan Sibyl]

It sounds like a colossal waste of taxpayer money to establish a new bureaucracy and possibly infringe on people's privacy.

How is a state-wide system better than the local school board handling any problems? Why do "successful" schools have to enroll? Why waste the money?

[Marc LeVine]

LS

This is a view I can certainly understand, accept and respect. Unfortunately, from a totally scientific viewpoint, when measuring all things one needs to look at "the best" and "the worst" to understand "the extremes" and arrive at "averages".... and, hopefully, to set realistic and ambitious goals.

There are always those concerns about cost. Funny, in business cost consideration is usually a distant second to the quality of service and ultimate benefits, offered. Unfortunately, our government has taught us, otherwise, through its many failed attempts at translating cost into measurable success.

This is why I mentioned and highlighted "interpretation and use" in my comments. It stem from my own concerns with letting government handle this sort of thing. If an entity outside of government was conducting such a program and was more sensitive to the needs of all those involved; and if their primary focus was on effectiveness and efficiency, we would have far less concern that a new bureaucracy might be evolving.

Unfortunately, poor reputations die hard.

Marc

[Libyan Sibyl]

But isn't that what standardized testing is for - measuring success? Is this an admission that standardized testing is a failure?

I don't know. This just sounds like another reason to homeschool your kids, folks.