Blogging the October 2008 DATAG Meeting

I wrote about the meeting last year here.

This year's meeting has the largest attendence ever at a DATAG regular meeting. That's a whole lot of data heads in the same room. I was tweeting some of David's comments for those following back in Buffalo but it's hard to take what David Abrams says and filter it down to 140 characters. My tweets were:

*Achievement is up in English statewide, except in Grade 8.

*n from 3-8 assessments - 1,200,000 students in ny. Thought it was higher

*"dis-intuitive" new word - describing the role of new language acquisition and NYSESLAT assessment. David has hit his verbal stride.

*"we are persistent because we're New Yorkers. And we're loud."

*12 minutes ago from web what happens when you change standards and implement new exams? Bigger bump at year 2 than expected.(math)

*David just reeled off about 10 different statistics about schools in ny. Sexy.

"degenerative rhetoric" - describing mathematics as a mastery skill

*FYI - David began his presentation by saying he isn't talking to be understood, he expects some won't understand him. "Deal with it."

*NY is one of the most tightly coupled states around testing. Arizona is at the other end of that spectrum.

I think he shared something very important about Algebra but I'll have to listen to the recording to figure it out. If David were hooked up to an MRI machince while talking, I imagine it would look like fireworks at Disney World. In the space of two minutes, he gave a commentary on Pie Charts, an anecdote about students graduating early from High School and comments about the rules of large numbers. He added a quick aside about the fact that someone people wouldn't come back next year because of him and shrugged, pretty much saying "this is the system. If you want to be a part of it, learn how it works".

His PowerPoint is below. I'll figure out a wy to post the audio later.

Datag Annual Testing Accountabilty Discussion 10 081

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: data datag)