Grant wrote:
I would be interested in collecting data in a document that shows increased retention over time, increased enrollment of boys or students of color in upper levels, increased performance on AP or IB tests over time, etc. with you, the person submitting the data, holding on to the cold hard numbers.
I am thinking of the kind of stuff that Darcy and Bob Patrick have put out there, but with some kind of hard numbers behind them. The last thing we need is to throw around meaningless statistics that, when tested, prove less potent than intended.
Each person here would have to make up their mind on what are the best numbers to get. If you are the only Latin, German, Chinese teacher, you can harvest your own retention numbers. You can harvest your own AP pass rates, etc. How many entered level 1 in year X. How many entered level 4 in year X+3? If you’re looking to get a baseline, I would send an email to the data keeper at your school that says something like this:
Dear ,
In an effort to determine a baseline for our equity initiatives, we are looking to get a full picture of enrollment trends in world language over the last several years. We would like to see initial enrollment numbers for all levels of all languages and their end enrollment numbers at years end. For example, French 1 in 2007 had X enrolled in September and X enrolled at end of year in July.
We do not need names, but we do need to be able to break down by gender and ethnicity. If it’s possible, we are interested in a calculated avg. GPA of enrolled students at all levels as well. This would give you the data you need to determine retention/attrition rates for each language, hopefully for at least 2 or 3 four year cycles. Then you have your baseline and can make projections and goals against them.
Robert explained how he did his own data collection on retention here:
The way I did it was to look at my enrollment in level 1 in a particular year (say 2006). Then I got rid of all but the freshmen – after all a junior has no possibility of being in the program in four years. Next I looked at the enrollment in level 4/AP four years later. I also factored out students that I knew had left the school because of transfer, moving away, expulsion. Then I compared the number of students who began as freshmen and were still at the school with the number of students enrolled in 4/AP that year. (I also took out from the enrolled total any students who transferred into the program from elsewhere.)