I do find value in this, because I believe it helps to identify areas of improvement, and it also helps to highlight the need for non-traditional solutions based on larger trends in secondary education.

For example, if the year over year graduation rate of a high school decreases by 1%, that trend is disturbing in the absence of any context. However, if every other school in the area is experiencing a 5% decrease year over year decrease in graduation rate, it may indicate that there is a larger underlying issue that is not directly related to current school policies (i.e. a state or nationwide opioid crisis). As a district, having this information does not preclude working to correct a negative trend, but it provides a better indicator on how to begin to address the issue.

YES! Self evaluation I believe is important in business, as a school district, and life in general. There are always things we can be doing better. Benchmarking/ looking at how other districts are succeeding should be an important element of that evaluation. We need to honestly ask ourselves- what are we doing right? Where are the areas we can improve? In what areas are other districts out performing us? How are they doing that, and how can we use that information to make Merrimack better? If other districts are doing things that are improving the education they are providing for their children, then those are things we should be looking at and discussing.

I think we should absolutely be paying attention to the best practices of the districts surrounding us. We can learn a lot from what other districts do and how they do it. However, comparing town-to-town for certain metrics can give a false picture if all of the facts, data and demographics are not considered. Some towns are a decent comparison because of socio-economics, median education level, district size, building configuration, and student demographics (things like ESOL, SpEd or Free/Reduced lunch population.) However other towns are less congruent comparisons when you look at those same demographics. We should absolutely be paying attention as district leaders to see what other districts are doing and how they are innovating and modernizing the educational process and approaching various needs within their school communities that we can learn from. We simply have to be careful that we are not comparing apples to oranges when doing one-to-one comparisons of between towns that may or may not have comparable demographics/situations/populations.

I think it's important to know what happens in other school districts so we can hear and learn about best practices and what works along with what doesn't. Collaboration with our educational partners is critical for our success and I value those partnerships greatly. I get so many wonderful ideas from my colleagues around New Hampshire. But I do think we have to be careful when comparing ourselves to other school districts. Town demographics, culture and climate, size, location and so many other factors play a huge role in a school's offerings and day to day functions. There's no harm in a compare and contrast exercise but it's important to keep in mind how many different elements come into play when it comes to how a school district is run.

I do feel that there is value in benchmarking the Merrimack District against other districts, however, when doing so, the differences between the compared districts must be realized (differing programs, location, socioeconomic status, size, etc). This can be seen in some of the current 3rd party rankings for schools that are being ranked on a variety of different parameters, but if a district's offerings does not fit into those parameters, they receive a 0% towards that portion instead of the differences being factored in such as what was discussed during the review in October, 2019. Additionally, comparisons are not measurements. A district could fall into the top 20th percentile among others in pre-chosen category, but that doesn't actually explain how that district is doing because the comparison does not show an actual number difference. For instance, the top 20th percentile could have students all scoring relatively similar on testing, and just a few points separate them, or there could be drastic differences in the point range among that group. It also does not show how a district has improved over the years. Our district could remain level and unchanged in state scoring assessments, but districts around could have fallen or increased effecting where we fall in the percentile.

With all that said, the benchmarking can have significant value as well. When comparing to other districts, it can help to highlight what areas of improvement are needed or what areas the district is currently excelling in. Comparisons can allow for us as a district to look into other districts that are succeeding in a specific area to see what they have/are doing to improve in order to help create dialogue towards our own improvements.

Part of the process of evaluating success is measuring the district against comparable standards. There is no "perfect" district to compare to, but there are several that are close to the demographics of Merrimack as well as numerous resources from the state and outside sites to help collect data. It is with a wide net of gathering data that a picture can be made on how successful the district is in achieving its goals.

Yes. We have a natural tendency to compare. It helps us to understand value. School districts are rated in many different ways (this is just one of them), and to compare ourselves to similar districts is important to understand what we are doing well and what we might be able to do better. It provides a metric that we can use to drive results.

Yes, in addition to other criteria, it is important to look to how other schools are performing in comparison. We should not only evaluate our test scores, college readiness, drop out rate, graduation rate, etc, but also see how they compare with schools of similar size, enrollment, median income, budget, etc. There is a state ranking system and since colleges and universities use the rankings, I believe it is important to use them as well. We should also use this to evaluate our budget. For example, if we have a higher budget but much lower ranking based on certain criteria, we should evaluate why and how to improve to ensure best utilization of funds for excellence.

All information is valuable. We also need to look at national assessments, state assessments and in-school assessments to evaluate how the district improves its instruction.

"If you don't know where you're going, how will you know when you get there?" Being able to measure student outcomes is an important piece of evaluating the effectiveness of our curriculum and programs. I am very concerned about the lack of data available to parents who know their kids are struggling, but feel they aren't getting the support they need, as well as those who want to be assured their kids are "on track" or "excelling". The new report cards are an insufficient barometer of whether students are performing on par with their peers or not, and parent teacher conferences are limited on time and highly subjective in nature. So how do we know how well our kids are doing? How do we know they aren't behind after significant loss of instructional time over the past year? The data to answer these questions is not readily available or has not been shared.

The school board and administration should be using standardized testing and other benchmarks as an indicator of how well we are doing in providing the "adequate education" that the State requires. Data should be openly shared with parents and the community as an indicator that our District is meeting or exceeding that goal. Parents should receive the results for their child and the overall grade level results should be shared on the District website. Reviewing data is the best way to determine whether programs and policy changes are effective at meeting District goals. At this time, I do not see that our current School Board is reviewing that data and using it to guide policy decisions, let alone be able to see how our District compares to others in the State and work toward significant improvement.

If analyzing data in a normalized fashioned (i.e., apples-to-apples & not apples-to-oranges), there is value in looking across data sets of similar sample sizes and populations. At a minimum, it provides a means to compare districts at a top-level and lends leadership and school boards to dig deeper into data. It should invoke thought and conversations as to why results vary, and help identify strengths and areas that may be in need of improvement. It should be one tool of many used to help in assessing the district and student progress as a whole, but should not be used solely to compare districts side-by-side.