The following opinion essay was written by Ashley Stockton, a New Havener who teaches kindergarten at Truman School and serves on the executive board of the city’s teachers union. I notice that Mayor Elicker’s Board of Ed voted to spend over $1 million to renovate 21 Wooster Place. I notice that this building is not for student use and that it is administrative offices for the Academic Team. I notice that Mayor Elicker’s Board of Ed voted to spend over $1 million of ARP ESSER funds and then an additional $6,000 for the Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning and the supervisors of the Academic Team to receive Data Wise training and certification from Harvard and that they now can add certified Data Wise trainer to their CVs and/or facilitate these trainings. I wonder why Mayor Elicker’s Board of Education voted to spend roughly $2.4 million to improve the working conditions, professional learning, and professional certifications for five individuals. I wonder if this is equitable? I wonder if this is fiscally responsible? Data Wise is a process of utilizing data in order to inform practice with the objective of improved outcomes. Harvard “created” and marketed this product to sell to school districts. Together with my teaching colleagues, I spent this academic year participating in the Data Wise process in my school library every Wednesday morning before school. After nine months I noticed that this process is largely the same as every other data process I have been trained in and participated in over the past 20 years as an NHPS teacher. I wonder why this process is being described as a new and different one? I wonder if Gateway or Southern was offering this program rather than Harvard, whether Mayor Elicker’s Board of Education would have voted to spend $1.2 million for training and certification of five Central Office employees? I wonder if these five individuals are now in a position to benefit from this certification? Does it make them more valuable, professionally? Can other organizations contract them to facilitate trainings? I don’t know, and I am not “climbing the ladder of inference” (a Data Wise term). Simply, I am employing the steps of Data Wise: Looking at data, noticing, and wondering. Last Thursday marked the third day in a row that I was taken out of my school and away from the 20 kindergarteners I am responsible for teaching to attend Data Wise training at the Field House. I noticed that there were approximately 150 teachers, instructional coaches, and assistant principals there. I noticed there was air conditioning in that space. I noticed that up to five supervisors, two assistant superintendents, and the superintendent had been there. I noticed that thetechnology worked and that materials like chart paper and markers were readily available. I wonder how my paraprofessional managed that day? It was her third day in a row supervising my class alone while I was at Data Wise Training. I wonder how hot our kindergarten classroom was because we don’t have air conditioning? I wonder if our students who struggle everyday with dysregulation and elopement were okay and felt safe after three days without their teacher? I wonder why I couldn’t spend my last full week of the school year in community with my class celebrating our growth and enjoying all that we’ve experienced together this year? I wonder what shifts we would see in our data if Mayor Elicker’s Board of Ed used their voting power to insist that schools were funded before administrative offices? How would student achievement shift if teachers received professional learning they identify as impactful rather than professional development in a brand-name product packaged and sold by Harvard? If data tells a story, I wonder if it would be valuable for Mayor Elicker and his Board of Ed to look at their voting records and notice what story they tell. Perhaps they will wonder why they vote to allocate our tax-payer money in the manner they do. Perhaps they will examine their own practice and ask themselves the Data Wise “Equity Halo” Step 8 question: Who benefits? Who does not? And what are we going to do about it? The post Opinion: What Do You Notice About School Board Spending? What Do You Wonder About “Data Wise” Training? appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less