Why Is “Growth Data” Risky?
Because it is a model that predicts the future. It is not a metric, it is not direct data or a measurement. It is a calculated estimate which is very sensitive to initial conditions and assumptions.
And assumptions are informed by the biases and ideology of those crafting the model.
If everyone’s biases and ideology were perfectly aligned then modeling concerns might be limited to issues such as privacy and transparency. However education reforms of recent decades articulate a competitive marketplace system of winners and losers, defined by these models directly. Controlling the biases that inform these models, is tantamount to controlling the landscape of what constitutes winners and losers in that marketplace. Controlling the assumptions that guide the growth models is therefore imperative to the neoliberal vision of education reform as a marketplace.
Such underlying bias is referenced in this article written by an Aspire charter executive and ideologue, for CORE-PACE, one of the myriad hidden constituents of LAUSD’s “portfolio” of research partners:
…trading … growth models for proficiency models … will not necessarily reflect the values of those tasked with creating accountability systems in education.”https://edpolicyinca.org/sites/default/files/PB_Cremata_Sept19.pdf
Those who set the presumptions of the model, control its consequent decisions.
More, while our public, democratic school system is supposed to be transparent CONTINUE READING: Why Is “Growth Data” Risky? – redqueeninla
