OPEN LETTER TO HIGHLINE SCHOOLS: New Dashboard Ignores Academic Achievement

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August 22, 2024

‍This is public comment was presented by Patricia Bailey to the Highline School Board at their August 21, 2024 meeting.

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‍by Patricia Bailey

Good evening.

Last fall, it was heartening when Highline School administrators signaled their intent to create a dashboard to track and improve the alarmingly low academic achievement of Highline students. One could reasonably suppose data would be reported by individual school and grade level. This way the data would be useful to teachers and administrators at each building to evaluate and improve student achievement. This data could also be used by the School Board to assess the degree to which the superintendent was meeting academic goals for that year.

That’s why the recently posted dashboard is so perplexing. Instead of reporting the number of students meeting grade-level standards, metrics are based on the number of students making a year’s growth. The dashboard shows a 4% rise in the number of students making a year’s growth in the 2023-24 school year. Unfortunately, this methodology could be concealing the fact that these students may be 2 or 3 years below grade level, to begin with, and making a year’s growth falls distressingly short of needed gains. This is not "transparency," and it even appears that it may be an effort to obscure.

The Highline school district has some of the lowest academic achievement in the state, and a substantial number of administrators make hefty six-figure incomes. Yet, this is all the thought and effort senior management is willing to put forth to improve academic achievement? This is very troubling and unprofessional. It needs to be corrected using specific, rational, standard reporting methods so that students can be prepared for fulfilling work and the future they choose.

Thank you.

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