A critical component of school reform is the ability to obtain, evaluate, and use data effectively. The National Essential Skills Study provides a wealth of information that educators can use in discussions about curriculum content that is "essential" vs. "nice to know." The following suggestions are provided as a guide for education leaders in analyzing the NESS results.

1. Look at the top and bottom nationally ranked topics in all content areas. The top-ranked topics tend to be skill-based as opposed to conceptual. These topics typically depict the application of knowledge across a variety of contexts and are traditionally considered by many, especially those in business and industry, as the foundation skills within the discipline. For example, consider these top-ranked topics in each subject:
   
   English language arts
   • Apply writing rules and conventions (grammar, usage, punctuation, sentence structure, and spelling).
   • Read for main ideas and supporting details and discriminate important ideas from unimportant ideas to aid comprehension.
   Science
   • Know and apply the principles of scientific inquiry for generating knowledge, including prediction, estimation, developing hypotheses, drawing conclusions, evaluation, and following ethical principles and professional procedures.
   • Understand the concepts of force and motion as they apply to simple machines (e.g., levers and pulleys).
   Mathematics
   • Perform operations fluently with positive and negative numbers, including decimals, ratios, percents, and fractions, and show reasoning to justify results.
   • Use proportional reasoning to solve real-world problems.
   Social Studies
   • Examine the purpose of rules and laws, explain how governments enact and enforce them, and assess ways to evaluate rules and laws.
   • Employ geographic tools (maps, globes, photographs, models, satellite images, charts, databases, GPS, etc.) and other visual images (physical, mental, and electronic representations) to acquire, process, and report information about people, places, and environments from a special perspective.
   The lower-ranked skills, especially in English language arts, can be classified as content-based concepts and methodologies, which have been part of curricula for a long time. Although these topics were u originally as a means to teach some of the top-ranked skills, they are frequently being taught today as ends in and of themselves rather than as a means to teach the more critical topics. While reviewing these results, try to distinguish between the skills and knowledge that have purely academic applications and those that also have real-world applications.
   
   For example, some of the lowest-ranked topics in the study are:
   
   English language arts
   • Examine the purpose of rules and laws, explain how governments enact and enforce them, and assess ways to evaluate rules and laws.
   • Compare/contrast literary genres (science fiction, romance, drama, etc.) or delivery systems (books, live performance, film, etc.).
   • Assess the significance and importance of themes in a literary text.
   Mathematics
   • Know how to sketch basic conic sections (e.g., circles, parabolas) by using their equations and solve systems of non-linear equations graphically.
   • Apply summation notation to take the sum of an expression using limits
     (e.g., take the sum of 3i + 1 from i = 1 to 5).
   Science
   • Compare and contrast the three most prominent models of the atom: the Rutherford, Bohr, and Cloud models. Examine how each theorizes the way in which electrons orbit about the nucleus.
   • Know the history of the geocentric and heliocentric solar system models and how they are used to explain celestial and/or terrestrial objects or events.
   Social Studies
   • Examine and explain the processes that led to the emergence of the earliest agricultural communities around the world.
   • Examine and explain the characteristics of early civilizations (4000-1000 BCE) in Eurasia and Africa and the emergence and spread of agrarian and militaristic societies.
2. Compare rankings among the subgroups of educators and non-educators. Identify any significant differences in ranking for a particular topic between groups and attempt to assess the reason behind the variance. For example, consider why business/industry participants ranked "Write clear and concise directions or procedures" 2nd and English language arts educators ranked the same skill 34th. That skill is one that employees need to apply in the workplace. The subject area educators may view the topic from a solely academic standpoint.
   
   Many topics that are typically considered "basic" skills and knowledge in a discipline may be ranked as high priority by all segments of the population, with the exception, in some cases, of the educators in that discipline. This may mean that the teachers who must deliver those basics believe either that these skills are not important or that they are not the responsibility of the discipline. The result is that these basic skills may not be receiving the attention they deserve.
   
   Conversely, subject area educators sometimes place more value on a topic than the other subgroups. For example, science educators rank "Explain chemical bonding in terms of the transfer or sharing of valence electrons" 49th while business/industry, other non-educators, and other educators rank that topic 77nd, 66th, and 76th, respectively.
   
   Rankings of topics by educators not in the subject area and the public, which includes the business community, correlated highly to each other, thus indicating that these groups have similar priorities. For example, "Apply the Pythagorean Theorem to right triangles" was ranked 25th, 31st, and 25th by business/industry, other non-educators, and other educators, respectively. Math educators ranked that skill 6th.
   
   This close correlation may be surprising to those who perceive the public, especially the business community, to have different priorities from general educators. The NESS data allow policymakers to make informed judgments about the relevance of each topic as it relates to today’s standards, not just as it relates to the traditions and conventions of the discipline.

The NESS results provide a point of departure that can lead to curriculum, instruction, and assessment targeted to the most essential skills and knowledge.