Dive Brief:

• The advocacy group Broader, Bolder Approach to Education is demanding that DC officials give more information on the test score data they release.  
• According to a report released by the group Thursday, a “lack of transparency, combined with cherry-picking specific numbers" has given the public an inflated understanding of the District's progress.
• The demand for more data comes just in time for the August release of 2014 assessment results by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education.    

Dive Insight:

While the OSSE does plan on sharing more information this year in the name of transparency, it does not stand by the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education's claims that the department was purposely inflating public perception of scores. Briant Coleman, a spokesperson for the agency, told the Washington Post via e-mail that the call for data contained, "numerous errors and inaccurate information.”

So what does Broader, Bolder Approach to Education want in terms of transparency? Cut scores of students organized by race, poverty, and disability status. According to Elaine Weiss of BBAE, the raw data will show the District has made less improvement than it thinks and that the gap between black and white students, and poor and low-income, is only continuing to grow.