The urgent need to help students recover from the negative effects of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic on mathematics learning and access equitable opportunities in mathematics will require that teachers use every available tool to diagnose student learning needs and identify solutions. In this report, researchers provide a look at the student data to which Florida mathematics teachers have access and use to identify students in need of support.

Florida K–12 Mathematics Teachers' Access to and Use of Student Data

Findings from the 2022 Learn Together Survey

Lucas Greer, Elizabeth D. Steiner

ResearchPublished Jul 11, 2023

The urgent need to help students — and particularly students who are Black or Hispanic — recover from the negative effects of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on mathematics learning and access equitable opportunities in mathematics will require that teachers use every available tool to diagnose student learning needs and identify solutions. Teachers' use of data, including informal assessments, standardized or benchmark assessments, classroom observations, attendance, demographic data, instructional strategies on standards-aligned content, and growth reports, could be a valuable tool in addressing these challenges. In this report, researchers provide a look at the student data to which Florida mathematics teachers have access and use to identify students in need of support, and whether teachers are adequately supported to use student data effectively in their daily instruction.

Key Takeaways

  • Nearly all kindergarten through grade 12 (K–12) Florida mathematics teachers reported having access to student data on attendance, grades, standardized test scores, and formative student assessment scores through their electronic data management systems. More than two-thirds also had access to students' disciplinary and course enrollment histories.
  • Only one-third of K–12 Florida mathematics teachers had access to student data on social and emotional competencies and postsecondary outcomes through their electronic data management systems.
  • Less than one-half of K–12 Florida mathematics teachers had access to student data through their electronic management systems that had been disaggregated by race, ethnicity, and family income (between 16 percent to 45 percent, depending on the type of data).
  • K–12 Florida mathematics teachers were more likely than mathematics teachers nationally to report access to all the types of student data we asked about through their electronic data management systems and were more likely to rely on formalized data sources (e.g., standardized mathematics tests) when prioritizing what mathematics content to teach.
  • Similar percentages of K–12 Florida mathematics teachers from large and small Florida school districts had access to student data through their electronic data management systems; however, those in small school districts were far less likely to have had access to disaggregated data.
  • Elementary (grades K–5) and secondary (grades 6–12) Florida mathematics teachers used different data to identify struggling students.

Recommendations

  • Increase Florida mathematics teachers' access to disaggregated student data, especially in smaller school districts where access is lower than large school districts.
  • Provide Florida mathematics teachers with access to data on students' social and emotional competencies and professional learning to facilitate their use.
  • Start collecting postsecondary outcomes data.
  • Ensure mathematics teachers receive the professional learning and resources to use student data effectively.

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Greer, Lucas and Elizabeth D. Steiner, Florida K–12 Mathematics Teachers' Access to and Use of Student Data: Findings from the 2022 Learn Together Survey. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2023. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA827-16.html.
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The research described in this report was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and conducted by RAND Education and Labor.

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