Cross-tabbing refers to looking at education data for disadvantaged students across different categories, such as race and gender combined.
Charles Barone offers us a useful example:
Black males are many times more likely to be subject to corporal punishment – in school – than black females. Averages for black students across gender hide this phenomenon. Cross-tabbing data in this example can help identify, and inform efforts to overhaul, troubling school discipline policies.
Since the 1990s, it has been official federal policy to require states to disaggregate student data to provide a closer look at how minority and disadvantaged students are performing. What is still at issue is whether the next ESEA reauthorization, whether it might happen under the Obama Administration or the next administration, would take that same data and use cross-tabbing to uncover further skeletons in the American educational equity closet.
Barone, writing for Ed Reform Now, reminds his readers of the crucial role that Presidents play in decisions such as this. Presidents can help improve American education by pushing through politically unpopular reforms, and he hopes that the current administration will push to allow cross-tabbing.
For more information, please follow this link:
https://edreformnow.org/if-everyone-loves-esea-disaggregation-why-is-cross-tabbing-such-a-problem/
