Jack Schneider here describes the frustrating and ultimate fruitless pursuit to create the perfect data system to measure the quality of schools and teachers.
The waivers from NCLB were supposed to provide greater flexibility but they provided no relief from the standardized testing mania.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Duncan is wrong. The sports data mentality doesn’t work re: educating our young.
I am attending a conference sponsored by Pearson called “Data Driven Culture” because I want it explained to me. I am determined to thoroughly explore all talking points in this education debate.
One thing I do know is that human instinct is to take failing as a measure of worth that eventually causes us to look elsewhere for validation. If school does not encompass opportunities for success for a variety of aptitudes, then we have truly hollowed out our schools to be the wastelands once warned about. That is, in honing in on data, we have possibly brought about the quagmire we thought we were trying to avoid.
Nevertheless, I want to hear it from the source.
Joanna
This kind of data…is Test Data…..It can be made to fit whatever Goal you so desire…..
Stats works if you are gathering temperatures……populations…etc..You have in these collections more exact numbers..
You have in the Test data……Scores from absurd- incoherent tests that are age inappropriate.on standards dictated by the Testing Hierarchy and the Big Giant Book Profiteers..
When they administered the first test in the Spring of 2013..they had no grading scale until October 2013?
Why…..they took all of the scores in the State…after the Tests and then decided who failed and who passed…
They made it perfectly clear that the scores would be low …before the tests were even administered……….
Betting to kick Arnie out and into a classroom in 2016..
He deserves to serve his time in the classroom because outside of it he has not a clue as to the damage he has created
Nevertheless, I will go hear what they have to say.
“Stats works if you are gathering temperatures. . . ”
Yes and no! I am currently rereading Wilson’s Ch. 9 Instrumentation which is quite interesting regarding standards and measurement. See why I said yes/no”, from page 4 of that chapter:
The interference effect
It is a truism of science, often conveniently forgotten, that any measuring instrument distorts the field it is intended to measure. This is obvious when we think about it. For the measuring instrument to operate, it has to interact – that is, interfere – with the field it is measuring. Newton’s Third Law is a universal principal: every action has an equal and opposite reaction; if the field acts on the measuring instrument, then the measuring instrument simultaneously acts on the field.
The effect may be relatively small – a thermometer inserted into a large
container of hot water will not much affect the temperature of the water, though it will affect it. However, a very cold thermometer inserted into a very small cup of warm water may cause the temperature to drop appreciatively. The temperature thus measured is not that of the hot water, but that of the water-thermometer system.
In this particular case, it is possible to estimate the imprecision caused by the measuring instrument, if we know the masses and specific heats of water and container and mercury and glass, and the temperature of the surrounding air and the time taken for the thermometer to give its highest reading and the rate of heat loss from the container. Then we may estimate the temperature of the water at the moment the thermometer was inserted. However, even in this simple case, it is necessary to use a theory that is itself, of necessity, subject to some imprecision.
I suggest all to read Wilson’s chapter on instrumentation to understand the inherent limitations and problems with standards and measurement in the teaching and learning process. Go to http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700 and download the study and go to Chapter 9.
It gets to the heart of the problem of which so many so enthralled with educational “data” don’t understand (which means the vast majority of educators).