What’s the story behind conflicting headlines?

One week we have a headline saying that Wharton Independent School District is declining in assessment reports and the next week we have one saying they are improving.

So which is it?

It all depends on how you look at it. The stories were based on two reports from the same data. When I went to the March 21 meeting of the Wharton ISD Board of Trustees, a very brief report was given about the assessments. It was one of three reports that I requested the district to send to me after the meeting. The other two were approved in the consent agenda, which seemed odd to me. I’ve been covering school boards for many years and these reports generally garner board discussion.

To me, it felt like some things were being hidden from the public. The board members have their board book with all the information, but the general public doesn’t get that information unless it’s discussed in the meeting or, as in my case, specifically requested. In my experience, most governmental entities (city, county, school, state, etc.) tend to communicate with their own lingo and insider knowledge. They seem to forget that the John Q. Public doesn’t have the details and background information that they have.

Getting back to my point, I requested the assessment report and wrote my first story based on the information I received. That information included a side-by-side comparison of how the school district did on the STAAR test from 2019 to 2021. It excluded 2020 due to the test not being administered because of the pandemic. Given that information, what I wrote was true. Straight up, the district did do worse.

As Superintendent Michael O’Guin later informed me, that was not an “apples-to-apples comparison.” I was invited to meet with him and other administrators at his office where I was given a more detailed copy of the report and the district’s spin on the data. Based on the way the Texas Education Agency looks at the numbers, the district is actually making small improvement in most testing categories.

O’Guin went on to explain the challenges the district faces, the many changes he has implemented in the last two years, and his five-year plan (three years remain) for bringing the district back where it needs to be academically.

He also noted that many students took a COVID waiver from the test in 2021, so the numbers of students taking the exam in the two years were not the same. That, and like every other district in the state, test scores generally declined because so much instruction was lost due to the pandemic. The fact that Wharton showed improvement was remarkable.

As an example of interpretation, eighth grade math in 2019 scored 88, the same as the state average. In 2021, the district score was 69 (a decline from 2019) but the state average fell to 62, giving the district a seven point improvement over the state.

In hindsight, I can see that I should have probably sought an interpretation of the first report before writing about it, but I’m also glad I didn’t. I’ve been through enough of these things over the years to trust my instincts. I still believe my first interpretation was accurate, even if the district and the TEA don’t look at it that way. I think my follow-up story is also accurate because that is how TEA rates the district, and that is what’s important, not my perspective.

The other two reports I requested had to do with the teacher salary schedule for next year and incentives for certain teachers. In all my years of covering school boards I have never seen these items placed in a consent agenda (which is for quick passage of items considered routine, such as approval of minutes and paying bills.) Although I doubt this was the intent of the district, I fear too many governmental agencies are hiding things that are potentially controversial in consent agendas so they get passed without much fuss.

I’m not an investigative journalist and I don’t have time to spend digging into things. I’m glad I took the time in this instance, because a lot of good news for the district was getting glossed over.

I know I’m still a newcomer in town, but from my time spent covering Wharton ISD and time spent visiting with O’Guin and others in the district, I believe things are turning around. Progress is two steps forward and one step back, but it is progress. When O’Guin was hired two years ago, he inherited a district that was a mess. Cleaning it up and righting this ship is a slow, cumbersome process, but his plan appears to be working.

Every school district in the state was dealt setbacks due to the pandemic. Test scores suffered, there are teacher shortages, and discipline in general is lagging because kids and their parents are still uneasy with the effects of masking and social distancing. Reports are coming out about how mental health suffered more than we realized in the last couple years.

When you realize this is happening everywhere and not just in Wharton, things don’t seem so bad. In fact, despite the distractions, things seem to be going pretty well here. We just need to give it time and trust the process.

Joe Southern is the managing editor of the Wharton Journal-Spectator and the East Bernard Express. He can be reached at news@journal-spectator.com.