Joe Bower teaches in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada. He blogs at http://www.joebower.org.
He wrote this for us:
DO I SERVE YOU OR ARE YOU TO SUPPORT ME?
As a classroom teacher, I spend the majority of my time working with students while they are still learning, so I have an intense understanding for how important it is for kids to be engaged in learning by doing projects that are in a context and for a purpose.
Without the information (read: observations) that I gather from such projects, I could not call myself a teacher, nor could my students call themselves learners.
But how often is data defined like this?
As a classroom teacher, I have absolutely no use for data that reduces learning to a number for the convenience of administrators, policy makers and others who wish to judge the classroom without ever stepping foot in the classroom.
I will not be an accomplice to those who have needs and have absolutely no intention of ever even meeting my students. A system with authentic accountability would never ask me to do so.
If you are a politician, superintendent, schoolboard trustee, administrator or someone else who rarely visits the classroom, you might be thinking to yourself: “I need spread-sheet friendly data to report the successes, failures and growth of the schools.”
To you I say: “As a classroom teacher, am I here to serve your needs for your spreadsheet, or are you here to support me so that I may better serve my students’ needs
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Great point. After all, the word administrator comes from the Latin “ministrare,” which means “to assist.”
I was shocked to return to public school teaching this year after a three year break to have a baby and find a “data room” that is the central scrutinizer for the instruction. I get the notion of trying to seem savvy with the 21st Century but it seems a little like people are acting out Star Trek or something. As the music teacher, my lessons support the curriculum (fortunately I attended most of my meaningful workshops in the beginning of the 21st Century before Y2K fears had subsided enough to create 21st Century rigor fears. The actress in me finds it comical—but only because you either laugh or you cry.
I would cry if I thought it would change things. I think time is the only thing that will. So, Star Trek it is.
My son overheard me reading this reply and said that school policy makers should heed Spock’s words:
“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
He’s fifteen. But he’s seen enough of these zombie policies to know how harmful they are, and how all they do is help the few make a boatload of money.
Trying to think of an appropriate song, but its Saturday night and I’b been battling a spare tire all friggin evening that refuses to come off its moorings so I decided to have a couple of brewskies.
Is that spare tire on your car or around your middle? Either way, a couple of brewskies ought to fix it. ;0)
I can’t help myself:
Star Trekkin across the universe. On the Common Core enterprise, led by the perverse!
There are teachers on the starboard bow. . .
It’s life, everyone, but not as we know it. Not as we know it.
Amen brother…
A good article (might need a little editing here or there). Stuff that we can so far measure in bulk, en masses, about students is so far exceedingly crude and nearly useless. Humans are so much more complicated than any spreadsheet or computer algorithm can possibly hope to be. If the numerical wonks want to play around with that stuff, then, fine, let them mess around with trying to quantify human learning and so on. Maybe at some time later on this century they might find some interesting patterns that will help us figure out how to help kids learn useful stuff and become happy and productive and engaged members of society. Until then, the idea of having numerical idiot-savants like Erik Hanushek dictate public policy on education makes as much sense as taking phrenology seriously.
Obviously if you want your job you work for DATA!!
The superintendent of the district where I used to work went through an untenured colleague’s data binder. She had data showing which students met or did not meet each lesson’s objective, with next steps identified, scheduled, and coded as small-group, one:one, or whole class. The superintendent was unimpressed because she didn’t see evidence of “progress.” She asked, “Where is the data that shows the impact of this data?” Do these people listen to themselves?
All of the data watching and worshipping (yes, data has become and idol) keeps reminding me of a line from my favorite satirist:
Oh, the jobs people work at!
Out west, near Hawtch-Hawtch.
there’s a Hawtch-Hawtcher bee-watcher.
His job is to watch…
is to keep both his eyes on the lazy town bee.
A bee that is watched will work harder, you see.
I leave it to you to decide who is the bee and who is the bee-watcher.
“To you I say: As a classroom teacher, am I here to serve your needs for your spreadsheet, or are you here to support me so that I may better serve my students’ needs?”
An excellent question!
I am sick and tired of feeding the data dragon who only spews back fire, scorching the teaching profession. Am I complicit in advancing my own professional demise? What a ridiculous situation!
Wow! You hit the nail on the head.