A Fresno Unified School District clerical mistake highlights how easy it is to introduce significant errors into data, which then become part of the permanent state record.
In 2019-20 and 2020-21, Fresno Unified counted some of its teachers in the “other” category, rather than the teacher category, when they reported annual certificated staff counts to the California Department of Education, according to an EdSource analysis of the data.
The data was reported correctly in 2021-22, which made it seem as if the district had significantly increased the number of teachers it had employed, when it had not.
This cuts in half the number of teachers that the CDE reported the state added between 2020 and 2024. Instead of the 3,000 new teaching positions the department lauded as positive news following the pandemic, about 1,500 new teaching positions were actually added statewide.
Fresno Unified actually had 3,687 teachers in 2019-20 and 3,679 teachers working in the district in 2020-21, according to Tarandeep Johal, a human resources analyst with the district. The district reported 2,115 and 2,202 full-time equivalent teaching positions to the state during those years.
The state records the number of teachers by full-time equivalents, or FTE, which is the number of full-time teachers, plus the number of part-time teachers who add up to a full-time employee.
It’s difficult to determine the exact number of teaching positions that were in error. Fresno Unified provided EdSource with the number of teachers it employed in those years and not the number of FTEs, which is how the state requires districts to report data.
According to a district spokesperson, Fresno Unified does not have access to the original FTE data that was submitted to the state.
Fresno Unified staff caught another error they made in 2019-20 and 2020-21, and contacted CDE staff. It had incorrectly reported graduation rates. The CDE didn’t correct the data, although it added a disclaimer to its DataQuest website, which offers school data to the public.
“Unfortunately, CDE does not have the ability to change what’s already been reported,” Johal said in an email. “We believe that during those same years (2019-2020 and 2020-2021), the total number of teachers reported during the Fall 2 reporting period was also incorrect; however it was not surfaced.”
CDE officials did not agree to an interview for this story but submitted a statement instead. The statement explained that California’s Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System includes a process for the district to review data before it is submitted. Districts then have several months to review, correct and certify their data.
The CDE also conducts data quality reviews of district submissions, the statement said. It did not explain why CDE staff did not catch the mistake during those reviews.
Once the data is certified by the school district, it is not changed, according to the CDE. Instead, a notation is put on the data in DataQuest reports. As of Tuesday, the CDE had not added a notification to the downloadable files used by researchers.
“The CDE is reviewing current CALPADS data validations to determine if additional system validations are needed to assist LEAs (Local Education Agency) and further ensure good data quality,” the statement said.
Black Educator Advocates Network Executive Director Jalisa Evans is disappointed that the Fresno Unified data is in error. Her organization saw the increase in the number of teachers in that district as a bright spot, something to attempt to replicate in other districts.
Now, she’s questioning the veracity of the rest of the state teacher data.
“We’ve already started beginning conversations on that data, and if I wouldn’t have known from you that that data was incorrect, we would’ve proceeded,” Evans said. “And so I begin to question, are we having conversations around the right data?”