SIDNEY -- The Nebraska Department of Education Recently released a report, a "snapshot," of student achievement across the state.

The report highlights the number of students enrolled in Nebraska public education, teachers employed in public schools and how the students did on assessment tests.

The concern, according to Sidney School District Superintendent Jay Ehler and Curriculum and Assessment Director Sheri Ehler, is the data needs to be considered in context. They said true student performance has many factors, not just assessment tests (scores). The published data would say state students are performing less than 50 percent proficient in most cases.That is now what educators in Sidney schools are experiencing (replace this with the above sentence. In addition to test performance, student achievement is based on recorded growth over the previous year and type of class. For example, is a student moving past remedial studies and into advanced lessons and how many are dealing with absenteeism.

Chronic absenteeism is defined as 10 percent of expected attendance. 

"Every day is an opportunity to learn," said Jay Ehler. Likewise, every day in class missed is a lost opportunity to learn.

They said when schools adjusted to COVID in the last three years, students lost classroom time.

"It only makes sense scores did go down," Jay Ehler said.

Sheri Ehler said the Nebraska Department of Education (NDE) made the decision not to lower the test score targets. Many other states adjusted test score targets during the height of COVID, she said.

Jay Ehler said the NDE may be making some changes in the future. He mentioned school districts having concerns, new state board of education members and a new education commissioner to be appointed.

Locally, the goal remains "what helps kids most," the Ehlers said.

"Our teachers and kids work together really well," Sheri Ehler said.

She said the goal each day is to learn something different. She said research shows education is best when favoring acceleration over remediation, when a subject is just beyond what a student knows. Finding the balance of "just enough" is the task of educators; close enough to be attainable, but far enough away to require work. Focusing on acceleration means a teacher recognizes when part of the class needs specific education without slowing down the acceleration focus.

"We really feel our teachers know their students," she said.

They said the concern with the State's snapshot is also the use of phraseology. Proficient students perform well above average by definition, Jay Ehler said. 

The state snapshot shows 327,055 students enrolled in Nebraska public schools at the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year. Enrollment for the 2019-2020 school year was 329,290, and 324,176 for 2020-2021. The state snapshot also shows the number of teachers for 2021-2022 at 23,962. 

The state snapshot can be seen at https://nep.education.ne.gov/statedata.html#00-0000-000/snapshot/20212022.