Improve Equity Data Skills With This Risk Ratio Tip
In this post, we show you how to use a simple sentence frame to share equity data with your community.
I don’t remember exactly when I first learned fractions, but I remember being confused. Until then, I learned the basic rules of whole numbers. I could add them and subtract them. I can split them up evenly. And I could operate on big numbers by carrying a digit to the next column (a metaphor I don’t totally understand but am still strangely dependent on today).
Then fractions showed up and those rules went out the window. For one thing, there wasn’t just one number anymore. One number turned into . . . two numbers separated by a horizontal line? And the way my teachers talked about fractions was unlike anything I’d heard until then: parts of a whole, numerators, denominators, shares, percentages, ratios, and proportions.
I’m not the only one confused by fractions. It turns out, this is a fairly common experience for children and adults.
A Comparison of Two Rates
Which brings us to the topic of this post. As members of the Equity, Disproportionality, and Design (ED&D) community, we look for ways to talk about a special kind of fraction: a risk ratio score. That’s because risk ratio scores are the way we monitor inequality in schools.
Here’s how I explain it at the ED&D data literacy workshops:
A risk ratio score is a comparison of two rates.
Broadly speaking, a rate could describe any event. In special education, the rate describes events like identification for special instruction or school suspension. The first one, called the analysis rate, is the rate for students in a racial subgroup. The second one, called the comparison rate, is the rate for students in all other racial subgroups.
To do good data analysis, we need to compare these two rates in some standard way. We do that by dividing the analysis rate by the comparison rate. The resulting single number is the risk ratio score.
I’ll make this concrete with an example. This is a hypothetical scenario, but it’s similar to what I see regularly when I work with risk ratio scores.
Risk Ratio Scores Are Abstract
Imagine you’re a special education director. It’s November and you’ve made the bold move to add an equity discussion as a standing agenda item at the monthly school psychologist meetings. Trust is building among the team and you’re feeling like it’s a good time to start looking at the data. You’ve got your latest equity reports from the California Department of Education. The reports are on white pages decorated with tables and numbers. But there’s one number that school leaders have their mind on: the risk ratio score.
The report on special education identification shows a risk ratio score of 3.5 for Native American students. You know from a recent training that any risk ratio score higher than three gets flagged by the California Department of Education. But why? And how will you share that with the school psychologists so it empowers them to investigate the practices of your school system? You worry that simply reporting a risk ratio score of 3.5 will feel abstract and ultimately meaningless.
During the ED&D data literacy trainings, we use visuals and sentence frames to teach special education leaders how to interpret and share risk ratio scores.
How to Share Risk Ratio Data at Meetings
One answer to these questions is to use a technique we teach special education leaders at our data literacy workshops. We call it “person-to-person” language.
Try it by using this sentence frame:
“In our district, we identify students who are __________ at a rate that is __________ times __________ than all other students.”
Let’s go back to the example. If we used this sentence frame to talk about risk ratio scores, we’d arrive at something like this:
“In our district, we identify students who are Native American at a rate that is 3.5 times higher than all other students.”
There’s a few things I like about this sentence frame. First, it puts the onus on us as the educators to change, not the students. Second, it puts the risk ratio score in context by using words that are conversational. And last, it gives risk ratio scores their intended meaning by highlighting the difference in rates.
Now it’s your turn. Take this sentence frame and practice by using it with risk ratio scores from your own reporting. Use these questions to make the process your own:
How can I change this sentence frame so it sounds like my voice?
What are questions that might come up when I share information like this?
How can I use these questions to spark conversations about meaningful solutions for our students?
Working towards equitable student outcomes is a massive undertaking. It’s one we need to take on together. And when we use person-to-person language, we empower ourselves to communicate abstract ideas in actionable ways. When person-to-person data language becomes part of our routine, we take a big step towards collaboration for equity.
In the end, we just might take fractions from the realm of the abstract and into the realm of meaningful problem solving.
Notes
It turns out, this is a fairly common experience for both children and adults: Siegler, Robert. “Fractions: Where It All Goes Wrong,” Scientific American, retrieved 8 Jul. 2021, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fractions-where-it-all-goes-wrong, 28 Nov. 2017.
any risk ratio score higher than three gets flagged: “Disproportionality,” State Performance Plan Technical Assistance Project, retrieved 8 Jul. 2021, https://spptap.org
we look for ways to talk about a special kind of fraction: Equity, Disproportionality & Design [@e_d_and_d], “California educators, it's hard to know where to start with equity and disproportionality data. If you're feeling this way, we're here for you. Get in touch with us at https://buff.ly/2ThZiAh or DM so we can help out #WeAreEDandD,” 29 Jun. 2021, https://twitter.com/e_d_and_d/status/1409911543244931077
add an equity discussion as a standing agenda item: Equity, Disproportionality & Design [@e_d_and_d], “#edleadership, wish you had more conversations abt equity data in your org? Here's a tip from one of our trainings: instead of holding a few data meetings per year, make a 10 minute standing agenda item at your monthly meetings. To change your systems, change your routines,“ 18 Jun. 2021, https://twitter.com/e_d_and_d/status/1405925277386035200