Education Innovation

Getting Stuck on the "New Stupid"

Data is supposed to drive instruction. Data is supposed to be used to inform decisions. Data should do many things, but does it?

Take for example the simple decision to wear a jacket to go to school. It is March, and the thermometer reads 59 degrees. You have all the data you need right? Maybe. If you live in California like I do, I am going to grab a jacket. 59 degrees is cold in my view. If, like some of my family, you live in Minnesota, you might come to school in a T-shirt. The same data, but interpreted very differently.

Frederick M. Hess had an article in ASCD’s Educational Leadership. The article titled  “The New Stupid” discusses how many leaders in education are making mistakes in how they use and apply student achievement data and systematic research.

The “old stupid” was failing to use or dismissing data and research as having little value. Now, though, we live in the era of data directed decision-making. The problem is we are not carefully considering the type of data or research without asking common sense questions. According to Hess, the “new stupid” has 3 key elements.

1. Using Data in Half-Baked Ways
Many educational leaders fail to ask simple questions about the effect or impact of using data or research. For example, educational leaders who were quick to move high performing teacher to low performing schools without asking questions about the effectiveness of moving teachers, the practicality of the idea, and if there might be other ways of encouraging quality teachers to move without forced relocation.

“Then as now, the key is not to retreat from data but to truly embrace the data by asking hard questions, considering organizational realities, and contemplating unintended consequences. Absent sensible restraint, it is not difficult to envision a raft of poor judgments governing staffing, operations, and instruction—all in the name of "data-driven decision making."

2. Translating Research Simplistically
One study in one specific situation shows a promising result and educational leaders jump on the data or results and use it to put entirely new programs in place. For example, taking the STAR (Student Teacher Achievement Ratio) Program’s results (showed positive achievement for small class sizes in kindergarten and first grade) and using it as a basis to implement programs state, county, district, or school-wide.

California implemented a class size reduction program through the entire state for every school. The data it was based on did not support such a move, and student achievement was not raised in significant ways. Again, educational leaders failed to ask some probing questions about the data such as, “What would be the impact of hiring thousands of new teachers?” or “Can this data be extrapolated to mean that all students in all situation will benefit from lower class sizes?”  The result in California is billions spent with very little in return.

3. Giving Short Shrift to Management Data
Educational leaders have not spent much energy or effort using data or research and applying it to the functions of the school or district. Most school district employees work outside the classroom, yet data is not collected about their performance.

“Data-driven management should not simply identify effective teachers or struggling students but should also help render schools and school systems more supportive of effective teaching and learning. Doing so requires tracking an array of indicators, such as how long it takes books and materials to be shipped to classrooms, whether schools provide students with accurate and appropriate schedules in a timely fashion, how quickly assessment data are returned to schools, and how often the data are used. A system in which leaders possess that kind of data is far better equipped to boost school performance than one in which leaders have a pallette of achievement data and little else.”

How do we avoid the “New Stupid?” Hess has some advice.

1. Good Judgment
“…educators should be wary of allowing data or research to substitute for good judgment. When presented with persuasive findings or promising new programs, it is still vital to ask the simple questions: What are the presumed benefits of adopting this program or reform? What are the costs? How confident are we that the promised results are replicable? What contextual factors might complicate projections? Data-driven decision making does not simply require good data; it also requires good decisions.”

2. The Data You Need and The Data They Need
“…schools must actively seek out the kind of data they need as well as the achievement data external stakeholders need. Despite quantum leaps in state assessment systems and continuing investment in longitudinal data systems, school and district leaders are a long way from having the data they require. Creating the conditions for high-performing schools and systems requires operational metrics beyond student achievement. In practice, there is a rarely acknowledged tension between collecting data with an eye toward external accountability (measurement of performance) and doing so for internal management (measurement for performance).

“The data most useful to parents and policymakers focus on how well students and schools are doing; this is the kind of data required by No Child Left Behind and collected by state accountability systems. Although enormously useful, these assessments have also exacerbated a tendency of school and district leaders to focus on the data they have rather than on the data they need.”

3. Know What The Research Can Tell Us and What It Can’t Tell Us
“…we must understand the limitations of research as well as its uses. Especially when crafting policy, we should not expect research to dictate outcomes but should instead ensure that decisions are informed by the facts and insights that science can provide. Researchers can upend conventional wisdom, examine design features, and help gauge the effect of proposed measures. But education leaders should not expect research to ultimately resolve thorny policy disputes over school choice or teacher pay any more than medical research has ended contentious debates over health insurance or tort reform.”

4. Reward Leaders Who Lead With Data
“…school systems should reward education leaders and administrators for pursuing more efficient ways to deliver services. Indeed, superintendents who use data to eliminate personnel or programs—even if these superintendents are successful and vindicated by the results—are often more likely to ignite political conflict than to reap professional rewards. So long as leaders are revered only for their success at consensus building and gathering stakeholder input, moving from the rhetorical embrace of data to truly data-driven decision making will remain an elusive goal in many communities.”

Data is not right, data is not wrong, it just is. It is a thing. It does not define a teacher, nor does it define a student. Most importantly, for my school, a test score does not define them and their work. It is a thing, a tool for understanding and improving their own practice.

“We are a society that is data rich, but information poor.” Robert H. Waterman

“Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everybody gets busy on the proof.” John Kenneth Galbrith

Using data and research are key to improving student achievement and creating high performing schools. But equally key, is asking great questions. It is through great questions that data and research become meaningful to each school district and school. What kinds of questions are you asking?

"Great results begin with great questions."  That is Education Innovation

We Are Hyper Connected, But To What Or Who?

Changing Mental Models- How PLCs Deal With New Realities

Professional Learning Communities, School Leadership Teams, and grade level teams are an excellent source of ideas. Most ideas lead to change.

To change, you must first see what is possible. Changing what teachers do, what grade levels do, what schools do, and ultimately, what education does starts with you changing your own thinking. The tragedy of September 11th provides an illustrative example.

According to Yoram (Jerry) Wind and Colin Crook, authors of The Power of Impossible Thinking, the United States was not prepared for the tragedy of September 11th because...

"Information was filtered through existing mental models related to terrorism and hijackings."

The authors suggest that our mental models could not predict the use of airplanes as weapons because it did not fit with our current mental models about airline hijacking.

"During the September 11th attacks, the information was filtered through a set of mental models that made it hard to see what was really happening until it was too late."

Contrast with the passengers of Flight 93 who instantly developed a new mental model to deal with the new reality.

"The passengers and crew of Flight 93 were presented with a picture that was similar to the hijackings earlier that day. What they suddenly developed, however, was a different mental model. They were able to quickly make sense of what was happening and to act on this new understanding. And that made all the difference" 

PLCs and School Leadership teams must be able to make sense of what is happening and to act on this new understanding. Data Driven Decision Making is based on this assumption. Data helps teams make sense of what is happening.

Mental Models control how we think and react. According to the authors, mental models, "...not only shape what we see and how we understand the world but also how we act in it. In a real sense, what we think is what we see, and what we see is what we think." 

So, I know you are asking, “Rob, what does this have to do with education and PLCs?” It has to do with education and PLCs because the world is quickly changing around us. Correction, the world has changed! The question is, do you see how it has changed? As educators, we often cling to outdated training, strategies, methods, curriculum, ideas, and beliefs, even when the educational situation has changed significantly around us.

Steven Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective people talked about the concept of “Sharpening the Saw.”  That is, we take the time to improve our skills and abilities to make our selves “sharper” or more effective.  What if, however, those skills and abilities are no longer useful?  No matter how much time a teacher spent improving their use of Word Perfect, the ditto machine, or running a movie projector, it will not make him or her any more effective. Those mental models no longer apply.  Teachers who have not adapted to the use of Professional Learning Communities, Data Driven Instruction, or technology may instead be spending time “sharpening" mental models that no longer apply.

As the authors of The Power of Impossible Thinking put it,"Sometimes we don't need to merely 'sharpen' the saw; we need to throw it out to pick up a power tool. If we are focused only on sharpening, then we might not see the opportunity to apply new technology that can radically change the way we approach the task." 

by minicloud

This is the underlying principle of Disruptive Technology as described by Clayton Christensen in his book Disrupting Class. What you think is not useful or effective, suddenly becomes very effective and replaces the prior model, idea, strategy, curriculum, technology, etc. PLCs must become aware of this possibility and practice a level of awareness that sees, what I call "Disruptive Ideas" on the horizon.

I recommend that we who want change take the time to occasionally immerse ourselves in the world outside of education to learn fresh and innovative ideas. This approach was detailed in the book The Medici Effect. Ideas from outside education can have a positive impact on education. Ideas learned elsewhere can make you a more valuable member in your PLC or SLT. Also, we need to constantly challenge our own “mental models” and those around us. This change is the heart of Education Innovation. Having differing mental models and differing exposures to other ideas creates Cognitive Diversity. A Cognitive Diversity is good for Professional Learning Communities and School Leadership Teams.

As famous management guru Peter Drucker famously said,"There is nothing more wasteful than becoming highly effective at doing the wrong things." We need to be able to put down our old mental models and be wiling to pick up new ones. So put down the saw and pick up a chainsaw

Professional Learning Communities: 10 Conditions to Achieve "Group Flow"

In his book Group Genius, Keith Sawyer describes 10 conditions that must exist for "group flow" to emerge in Professional Learning Communities. 

1. The Groups Goal
“One study of more than five hundred professionals and managers in thirty companies found that unclear objectives became the biggest barrier to effective team performance.”

If you grade level teams, departments, or PLC’s don’t know what they are meeting about and what they are expected to achieve, results are going to be poor.

The principal or chair of the group needs to manage what I call the Innovative Goal Paradox. That is, you want to be clear on the objective that must be achieved or the product produced, but flexible on the means the group achieves it. It’s like telling them the destination on a map, but leaving it up to the group to determine the route, time of travel, method of travel, etc.

2. Close Listening
Are your PLC teams listening to each other?

“Group flow is more likely to emerge when everyone is full engaged—what improvisers call ‘deep listening,’ in which member of the group don’t plan ahead what they’re going to say, but their statements are genuinely unplanned responses to what they hear.”

Let the student work, data, etc. drive the dialogue. Don’t come in with preconceived ideas.

“Innovation is blocked when one (or more) of the participants already has a preconceived idea of how to reach the goal…”

3. Complete Concentration
Time is valuable, especially when you are taking time from the teachers to have them meet in their PLC groups. You want to maximize the use of the time to honor the participants and the process.

Deadlines are not a productive tool for developing innovative ideas. Similarly, keep distractions away from meetings.

“Group flow is more likely when a group can draw a boundary, however temporary or virtual, between the group’s activity and everything else.”

4.  Being In Control
“Many studies have found that team autonomy is the top predictor of team performance. But in group flow, unlike solo flow, control results in a paradox because participants must feel in control, yet at the same time they must remain flexible, listen closely, and always be willing to defer to the emergent flow of the group. The most innovative teams are the ones that can manage the paradox.” 

This is one of the toughest to get for teachers because they work in isolation and have much autonomy and control of what they want to do. In the PLC, teachers will need practice letting go of control individually, while being allowed to have control of the process.

5. Blending Egos
“In group flow, each person’s idea builds on those just contributed by his or her colleagues."

In other words, everyone needs to contribute to get the best result or idea for how to meet the needs of students. Everyone!

6. Equal Participation
Group Flow won’t happen if everyone isn’t participating.

“Group flow is more likely to occur when all participants play an equal role in the collective creation of the final performance. Group flow is blocked if anyone’s skill level is below that of the rest of the group’s members; all must have comparable skills.”

Now this presents an interesting question. Do all teachers in your grade level or department PLC’s have comparable skills?  Yes, they all have credentials (or we hope), but there could be varying levels of years of experiences, staff development training, and technology knowledge. Is this a factor?  Maybe, but maybe not.

Group Flow is also blocked when one person dominates the group, believes he or she doesn’t need the group, of looks down on the process.

Another potential block to PLC flow, is the principal sitting in the meeting. If the principal does sit in the meeting it is important to, “…participate in the same way as everyone else by listening closely and granting autonomy and authority to the group’s emergent decision process.”

7. Familiarity
PLC members need to learn to the styles of each of the members because familiarity increases productivity, decision-making effectiveness, and the ability to understand what is happening in classrooms.

“When members of a group have been together for a while, they share a common language and a common set of unspoken understandings. Psychologists call these shared understandings tacit knowledge—and because it’s unspoken, people often don’t even realize why they are able to communicate effectively.”

However, here is an interesting paradox to the point above. Tacit knowledge is a part of group flow, but we don’t want PLC’s made up of people who think so exactly alike that nothing new can come out of the meeting.

This begs the question, how long should a grade level be kept together? Obviously, departments are dependent on credential, but at the elementary level, this isn’t so. Teachers can move grade levels easily. So, how long do you keep your current grade levels together before they become too stagnant?  Principals need to balance the need for familiarity, which allows for good decision-making and creativity, with the need to avoid over familiarity and stagnation.

Another interesting fact is this, familiar groups are great for problem-solving creativity, but unfamiliar groups are better for problem-finding creativity. So PLC’s and the need to examine student work, data, and teaching benefit from familiarity, but school wide problem solving that requires new ideas and innovation might benefit by being made up of teachers and staff from various grade levels and departments.

8. Communication
“Group flow requires constant communication.” 

Principals should be talking with their groups frequently. Feedback on how the PLC is doing and fact finding on what the PLC has discovered or decided on is key.

But, group flow can happen outside of the meeting too. Spontaneous conversations allows for group flow. Not every conversation has to take place around the conference table.

9. Moving It Forward
“Yes, and…”

This is a powerful sentence stem for your PLC’s to use in their meeting. When teacher are sharing ideas, members should listen closely, accept it, and build on the idea by using, “Yes, and…” Members validate the ideas of others, while simultaneously building on the idea with other ideas. This is a great way to generate powerful plans for improving student learning.

10. The Potential for Failure
Before lifting weights or going for a run, we should all warm our muscles up. The same could be said for our minds.

“Many groups require a preliminary warm-up period to move into group flow.”

Also, some ideas to improve student learning won’t. It’s just that simple. The principal and the PLC member need to understand that creativity is often accompanied with failure. We must allow our PLC’s to come up with ideas that fail. If we don’t, the quality of ideas and instruction will suffer because they won’t feel the trust they need to innovate.

Creative Tension is the just the right environment. “Group flow happens when many tensions are in perfect balance: the tension between convention and novelty; between structure and improvisation; between the critical, analytic mind and the freewheeling, outside-the-box mind; between listening to the rest of the group and speaking out in individual voices.”

Catalytic Questions

Is the timing right at your school in develop and inculcate these conditions in your PLC’s?

What patterns have you detected in your PLC’s that might prevent or allow for these conditions to flourish in your PLC’s?

In what ways might you loosen your control of PLC’s to give them autonomy in decision making and planning?

How might you challenge the prevailing conditions your PLC’s operate under?

In what ways might you connect what you know about group dynamics and creativity to your PLC’s?

What alternatives might you employ to create the 10 conditions of group flow?

How might these 10 conditions for group flow change the way your teachers think about PLCs?

In what ways might your view of PLC’s change if you viewed it from the perspective of a visiting teacher or visiting administrator?

In what ways might new a new idea for your PLC’s make a positive impact? What might that idea be?

In what ways might technology be used to enhance these 5 conditions?

How might the organization of your school’s PLC need to change to achieve these 5 conditions?

What probing question could you ask of your grade level or department PLC’s to determine the level of these 5 conditions being present?

What is your hunch about these conditions in your PLC’s?

In what ways could you better focus your time and energy to ensure these conditions exist?

How might you question your assumptions about your PLC’s and investigate what is truly happening?

In what ways might you adapt these conditions to your PLC’s?

How might you put existing time for teacher planning, meetings, etc. to better use and increase PLC time?

Recommended Reading:

Keith Sawyer's blog

Defining Professional Learning Communities (PLC)

All Things PLC blog

The Vision-less Learning Community.-Tempered Radical blog

3 Points Of Wisdom For Professional Learning Communities

As part of Education Innovation's on-going look at group collaboration and Professional Learning Communities I continue my examination of PLC through the lens and ideas of James Surowiecki's book The Wisdom of Crowds.

17/365 Talk To Me
Originally uploaded by Pascale PirateChickan

I Am Not A Talker

During the course of your PLC meetings, it there an opportunity for everyone to speak? It is a mistake when meetings are not structured so that all members have an opportunity to speak and share their ideas and insights. PLC must be structured and procedures need to be in place that allows each member of the Professional Learning Community shares their thoughts, ideas, information, or knowledge.

Not structuring meetings so that all speak is, “…almost always a mistake, because it means that decisions are made on a very limited supply of analysis and information. One of the consistent findings from decades of small-group research is that group deliberations are more successful when they have a clear agenda and when leaders take an active role in making sure that everyone gets a chance to speak.”

Educational Leaders need to purposefully design policies and procedures that will enable all members to give their input. The goal should be to develop a culture within the PLC that values all members input, that provides a high level of trust, and prevents negative judgment against those who share their ideas, knowledge, or opinions.

Get Past What We Already Know

There is a tendency for groups to spend too much time talking about information that everybody already knows, but not the information, data, or ideas that the group needs to know.

“…in unstructured, free flowing discussions, the information that tends to be talked about the most is, paradoxically the information that everyone already knows. More curiously, information that can be presented and listened to and still make little difference, because its contents are misinterpreted. New messages are often modified so that they fit old messages, which is especially dangerous since unusual messages often add the most value. (If people are just saying what you expect them to say, they’re hardly likely to change your thinking.) Or the are modified to suit a preexisting picture of the situation.”

In other words, when a PLC member has a new bit of information, data, or a new idea or innovation, they are likely to modify the message so that it fits the groups pre-existing picture of the situation. Also, modifying the message, may, in the speakers mind, make the idea more palatable to the rest of the group. However, when the modification is made, the group and misinterpret the message and thus miss a valuable piece of information or a powerful new idea.

Cognitive Diversity

If PLC members are modifying their message (ideas, data, knowledge, information) to better fit a pre-existing view or picture by the group, they limit the PLCs cognitive diversity. Diversity, especially cognitive diversity makes for a better PLC.

“…in small groups, diversity of opinion is the single best guarantee that the group will reap benefits from face-to-face discussion.”

With time in such limited availability at a school site, it is absolutely imperative that PLCs be effective as possible in their discussions. Planning and preparing techniques to ensure the groups cognitive diversity is crucial. Meetings must be capitalize and the diverse ideas, knowledge, and information that each individual possess. PLC must have a culture that de-privatizes private knowledge, ideas, and data and taps into the cognitive diversity of the group.

PLCs: How To Build From Nothing To Something

Many of you who follow Education Innovation know that I am in the midst of a school change initiative I call The Victory Project. Part of any change initiative is influencing people to use “best practices.” Collaboration through what we in education call Professional Learning Communities (PLC) is one “best practice” that I have attempted to initiate at the school site by influencing staff to recognize the power of all their un-tapped group wisdom and the effect it could have on student achievement.

The school site was currently engaged in any meaningful PLC practices, aside from meeting, which ranged from frequent to very infrequent.

I am a HUGE proponent of the Professional Learning Community model. I have attended conferences with DuFour and Solution Tree. I have read all the books:
•    Professional Learning Communities at Work: Best Practices for Enhancing Student Achievement
•    Learning by Doing: A Handbook for Professional Learning Communities at Work
•    Whatever It Takes: How Professional Learning Communities Respond When Kids Don't Learn
•    The Collaborative Administrator: Working Together as a Professional Learning Community
•    The Collaborative Teacher: Working Together as a Professional Learning Community

I buy into what they are selling. It works. I know it works because I have seen it work. But to influence a staff that has never used the model, I had to look for ways to influence their behavior but not force the system. I wanted them to buy into the idea because it resonated within them.

I spent some time listening to the sorts of words that the staff used when talking about student learning, student achievement, and teaching. What surprised me was how much it sounded like terms you would hear from health care professionals. I found this interesting. Working at a high poverty, high second language learner, and low achievement school these teachers talked about their work like they were trying to save lives and get kids “healthy.”

I decided that I would use terms from a health care system model to introduce and explain the PLC initiative that we were undertaking. I like systems. Great teachers have excellent systems. So do great schools. And we need to be great.

First and this is very important, all 4 phases rely on two ingredients. Great questions and hard data. Great results begin with great questions. And without data all we have are our own opinions.

Phase 1:Participatory
Health care talks all the time about getting people to participate in their own health management. So I used the term “participatory” to represent the philosophy behind phase one of the change. The staff would have to participate in PLCs. The focus would be “Systematic.” Teams would have to meet during set times and on set days. Teams would be responsible for documenting the outcomes of their meetings using an agreed upon record keeping sheet.

Phase 1 focused on getting the staff used to meeting with each other, sticking to the schedule, and documenting what they were doing.

Phase 2: Planned, Predictive, and Preventive
Health care systems used these terms to talk about what needs to be done to handle health care needs. They plan for what will happen, think about and predict likely issues and prepare for them, and attempt to prevent common illness before they begin.

Teachers too can improve their effectiveness when they are planned. Planning included common pacing and using Standards Based Lesson Plan design. By predicting what it is students will need to know at various assessment intervals, teachers can ready students and not be racing to catch up or failing to teach a standard all together. Finally, teachers prevent common mistakes because they are planned and predictive about what students will need to know and what they will do for those who don’t master a standard or have mastered the standard.

The focus here is standards, skills, and strategy. What is that students need to know? Thinking about power standards, essential standard, and deconstructing them into excellent focused lesson. What skills must they demonstrate and how can we equip students for the needs of the next grade. And what are the most effective strategies to teach students and help those who need more assistance in learning.

Phase 3: Progressive
Health care systems are progressive in the terms of the treatment options it brings to its patients. The goal was to move our teachers to being just as progressive in response to “academic casualties” and special needs. It is in Phase 3, after teachers had moved from meeting to talk about student learning, to planning for student learning, we would put into place our Response to Intervention (RtI) model. The focus is on student learning and being progressive about meeting the needs of each student by moving them progressively through the Tiers as needed of the RtI model.  Truly meeting the needs of each students learning needs.

The focus here is symptoms and solutions. What is that our students’ need and what is that we can give them?

Phase 4: Personalized
The best health care system meets your needs. It gives you exactly what you need. Here our PLCs would become a place where we meet the needs of each and every learner. Not content to merely talk about percents of student who know or don’t know a standard, or sub-groups of students, etc; but truly knowing what each and every student in the classroom knows and needs; Differentiation at the most personal of levels.

Our focus is on students. Not groups, not percentages, not achievement or proficiency bands but a student with a name. Our PLC will work to meet the needs of that student.

That is the ultimate goal of Phase 1 through 4. This is not "the way" is just my way. Looking at the needs, listening to the language used, and putting together a plan to influence behavior. The one thing I have never read or heard in all this PLC stuff is how to use your imagination. This is how I used mine.

A great resource is the All Things PLC website and blog.

Here is chart that graphically displays the four phases of implementation.

Getting Stuck On "The New Stupid"

Frederick M. Hess had an article in the recent edition of ASCD’s Educational Leadership. The article titled  “The New Stupid” discusses how many leaders in education are making mistakes in how they use and apply student achievement data and systematic research.

The “old stupid” was failing to use or dismissing data and research as having little value. Now, though, we live in the era of data directed decision-making. The problem is we are not carefully considering the type of data or research without asking common sense questions. According to Hess, the “new stupid” has 3 key elements.

1. Using Data in Half-Baked Ways
Many educational leaders fail to ask simple questions about the effect or impact of using data or research. For example, educational leaders who were quick to move high performing teacher to low performing schools without asking questions about the effectiveness of moving teachers, the practicality of the idea, and if there might be other ways of encouraging quality teachers to move without forced relocation.

“Then as now, the key is not to retreat from data but to truly embrace the data by asking hard questions, considering organizational realities, and contemplating unintended consequences. Absent sensible restraint, it is not difficult to envision a raft of poor judgments governing staffing, operations, and instruction—all in the name of "data-driven decision making."

2. Translating Research Simplistically
One study in one specific situation shows a promising result and educational leaders jump on the data or results and use it to put entirely new programs in place. For example, taking the STAR (Student Teacher Achievement Ratio) Program’s results (showed positive achievement for small class sizes in kindergarten and first grade) and using it as a basis to implement programs state, county, district, or school-wide.

California implemented a class size reduction program through the entire state for every school. That data it was based on did not support such a move, and student achievement was not raised in significant ways. Again, educational leaders failed to ask some probing questions about the data such as, “What would be the impact of hiring thousands of new teachers?” or “Can this data be extrapolated to mean that all students in all situation will benefit from lower class sizes?”  The result in California is billions spent with very little in return.

3. Giving Short Shrift to Management Data
Educational leaders have not spent much energy or effort using data or research and applying it to the functions of the school or district. Most school district employees work outside the classroom, yet data is not collected about their performance.

“Data-driven management should not simply identify effective teachers or struggling students but should also help render schools and school systems more supportive of effective teaching and learning. Doing so requires tracking an array of indicators, such as how long it takes books and materials to be shipped to classrooms, whether schools provide students with accurate and appropriate schedules in a timely fashion, how quickly assessment data are returned to schools, and how often the data are used. A system in which leaders possess that kind of data is far better equipped to boost school performance than one in which leaders have a pallette of achievement data and little else.”

How do we avoid the “New Stupid?” Hess has some advice.

1. Good Judgment
“…educators should be wary of allowing data or research to substitute for good judgment. When presented with persuasive findings or promising new programs, it is still vital to ask the simple questions: What are the presumed benefits of adopting this program or reform? What are the costs? How confident are we that the promised results are replicable? What contextual factors might complicate projections? Data-driven decision making does not simply require good data; it also requires good decisions.”

2. The Data You Need and The Data They Need
“…schools must actively seek out the kind of data they need as well as the achievement data external stakeholders need. Despite quantum leaps in state assessment systems and continuing investment in longitudinal data systems, school and district leaders are a long way from having the data they require. Creating the conditions for high-performing schools and systems requires operational metrics beyond student achievement. In practice, there is a rarely acknowledged tension between collecting data with an eye toward external accountability (measurement of performance) and doing so for internal management (measurement for performance).

“The data most useful to parents and policymakers focus on how well students and schools are doing; this is the kind of data required by No Child Left Behind and collected by state accountability systems. Although enormously useful, these assessments have also exacerbated a tendency of school and district leaders to focus on the data they have rather than on the data they need.”

3. Know What The Research Can Tell Us and What It Can’t Tell Us
“…we must understand the limitations of research as well as its uses. Especially when crafting policy, we should not expect research to dictate outcomes but should instead ensure that decisions are informed by the facts and insights that science can provide. Researchers can upend conventional wisdom, examine design features, and help gauge the effect of proposed measures. But education leaders should not expect research to ultimately resolve thorny policy disputes over school choice or teacher pay any more than medical research has ended contentious debates over health insurance or tort reform.”

4. Reward Leaders Who Lead With Data
“…school systems should reward education leaders and administrators for pursuing more efficient ways to deliver services. Indeed, superintendents who use data to eliminate personnel or programs—even if these superintendents are successful and vindicated by the results—are often more likely to ignite political conflict than to reap professional rewards. So long as leaders are revered only for their success at consensus building and gathering stakeholder input, moving from the rhetorical embrace of data to truly data-driven decision making will remain an elusive goal in many communities.”

Using data and research are key to improving student achievement and creating high performing schools. But equally key, is asking great questions. It is through great questions that data and research become meaningful to each school district and school. What kinds of questions are you asking?

"Great results begin with great questions."  That is Education Innovation

Data, Data, Everywhere

More from the Victory Project

Today we are having a staff development day focused on data. Data is supposed to drive instruction. Data is supposed to be used to inform decisions. Data should do many things, but does it?

Take for example the simple decision to wear a jacket to go to school. It is March, and the thermometer reads 59 degrees. You have all the data you need right? Maybe. If you live in California like I do, I am going to grab a jacket. 59 degrees is cold in my view. If, like some of my family, you live in Minnesota, you might come to school in a T-shirt. The same data, but interpreted very differently.

My goal today will be to depersonalize the data. Data is not right, data is not wrong, it just is. It is a thing. It does not define a teacher, nor does it define a student. Most importantly, for my school, a test score does not define them and their work. It is a thing, a tool for understanding and improving their own practice.

In preparing for the discussion that I will be facilitating I have come across some interesting quotes.

“We are a society that is data rich, but information poor.” Robert H. Waterman

“Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everybody gets busy on the proof.” John Kenneth Galbrith

Recommended Reading:

The Urgent Minority vs. The Complacent Majority