Read on Twitter
on why annual test scores this year are important to researchers and not necessarily practitioners. No judgment, just an explainer. First, longitudinal data systems have been built at great cost, including a political cost, in order to quantify student outcomes beyond a single
year through linkages to earnings data, health data, etc. etc. This is a direct response to the weaknesses of test-based accountability in isolation. The goal is to quantify the impact of education at various points in a student's life in order to make the case for education $$$,
and to prioritize funding for those components that have the largest impact. It has direct policy relevance, specifically to those legislators who are most likely to respond to statistics than stories. This again is just a political reality. Personally, I wish for a world where
there is not a demand for this quantification, in particular the ways in which it quantifies bodies and subjects them to the gaze of the state. But good people want quantitative data to make equitable budgets that address systemic inequities. Now, many argue that this paradigm is
precisely the cause of these inequities. To me, whether one agrees or disagrees, that argument is not something the average quantitative methodologist is equipped to engage with, and we should recognize that as a disciplinary failing.
