I often hear from teachers who tell me how the professional conversations within their schools have changed. They no longer discuss instructional improvements in their staff meetings; they no longer review opportunities for professional development related to classroom practice. They talk data. They hear from data experts. They strategize about how to get the numbers up. They drill down into the data. They focus on the kids who are a 2 on the state tests and ignore the 1s and the 3s and 4s. Data drive their conversation, their practice, their life. Data determine whether they will have a job next year. Data determine whether their school will live or die.
This state of affairs is the direct result of NCLB and Race to the Top. Miss your targets and you lose your profession. If you want to survive, be driven by data.
What’s wrong with that? It is the end of education. Education is not about amassing data. Education is about changing the lives of students; enabling them to become wiser, more thoughtful, more intelligent, more judicious, and to grow in health and character.
David Gamberg is the superintendent of schools in Southold, Long Island, in New York state. He describes what happens when educators lose sight of their purpose.. When your goal is to educate children, numbers do not tell the whole story. And when you forget sight of why you educate, you may no longer be educating. Just serving the dictates of distant policymakers.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“When your goal is to educate children, numbers do not tell the whole story.”
So true … thanks for posting.
Teachers in my district have one period of planning per day devoted to examining student achievement data and discussing ways to get the numbers up.
Teachers could use this time effectively for so many other responsibilities.
Authentic student learning is a complex process and reducing “student growth” to “pre” and “post” test scores demonstrates the embarrassing ignorance of our educational decision-makers.
The allure of data is simply too strong to resist.
I began teaching in a state where a high-stakes state testing system was already in place. Naturally, the pressure was intense on teachers, schools, and districts, but it was the only reality I knew.
Later, my wife and I moved to another state where high-stakes tests were just a seed of an idea, almost beginning to germinate. Of course, there was talk of it being just “one of many indicators.” Both my wife and I thought, “Yeah, right. We know what’s coming.” And ten plus years later, this fleur du mal has fully bloomed.
As a principal, I try to use data sensibly, as just “one of many indicators,” but it’s a losing battle. It’s difficult to complicate people’s thinking, to point out the complexities of educating young people, in an environment hooked on numbers. They’re so tangible, so easy to communicate. We can wave them about as proof of success or failure. As complicated as the algorithm can be, the numbers dumb us down.
I need our numbers to show improvement or else my leadership is questioned (or I’ll possibly get turnarounded). I don’t need to point out the numbers to our teachers; they scour them, searching for vindication. Our community judges us by them. As for the politicians and policymakers, we know how they use them.
I can’t go so far as to say the numbers have no place in education (Why can’t I go so far? Maybe I need to challenge my thinking on this.), but it appears that consuming them in moderation demands a level of intellectual rigor and self-discipline we don’t possess.
Your frustration as a principal with the misuse of student data is understandable because the top-down mandates are not in your control.
You are experiencing oppression.
Can you imagine how students feel with all the unnecessary emphasis on testing and the misguided categorization of them by their “ability levels”? It is damaging.
As adults in a public school setting, we are in a difficult position. Speaking out in a responsible and intelligent manner on behalf of our students can empower others to speak up, as well. It’s a beginning and allows this teacher to sleep a little better at night.
I did that just recently. I sent an email to a district administrator arguing against this new social studies standardized test being foisted upon us. I argued that it is too expensive, that students are already tested a great deal, and that there seems to be no real rationale for the test beyond the vague, “greatly inform(ing) your teaching.”
The administrator responded with a very long email. She stated that, if you add all the testing together, that it “only” takes two full school days out of the year, that the tests are to compare the district schools,and that they’re not high stakes tests (they aren’t. Yet.).
She never addressed the cost factor and never really addressed the rationale. I expect nothing will come of it, except maybe threatening my job. We’ll see.
Diane, I came up with a way to protect myself and colleagues in exactly the situations you described in your first paragraph. It’s called a Data Shield. It needs to be used judiciously, as admins are not all that amused by it – you couldn’t just walk into a staff meeting flaunting it, and so on. It could be kept in binders with obscene masses of charts and spreadsheets of student and school data. The most effective placement for me was under my shirt, and over my heart.
Feel free to share, copy, print (it comes in many sizes), even color it in: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahlness/5516514694/
Love the data shield. Getting one for every educator I know 😉
I copied your precise words explaining what education is really about. This will be my mantra through the coming year where now in Idaho part of our evaluations will include student achievement on standardized tests: “Education is about changing the lives of students; enabling them to become wiser, more thoughtful, more intelligent, more judicious, and to grow in health and character.” -Diane Ravitch’s blog, 8/25/12
I’ll never forget just why I am a teacher no matter how much testing data the administration craves. Thank you always for your insights.
In DC, we focused on and were repeatedly told to focus on those kids who were borderline Proficient. Those above and below we were told really didn’t matter.(The emphasis was on getting the borderline kids over the hump) I wished I had taped those conversations. (in DC doing so would be a wiretapping violation) although had I done so, an even bigger crime may have been aborted. (If the parents even knew….) So much for the bogus, “It’s for the kids”, “this is a civil rights matter- it’s an injustice what is happening to these kids.” How ironic?
You know the hypocrisy is what I find most disturbing. This fixation on tests and data is to alleviate this great “civil rights crisis/injustice”, but it works just the opposite.
Why are teachers and educators the only one troubled and puzzled by this disconnect?
Here in Clark County Nevada we did that too. We are now out of “bubble” kids. We have severely neglected kids that are extremely lacking in skills. We also are now using the “Nevada Growth Model” using student growth percentiles. This lets teachers be fired because the students in respective percentile groups must all show growth above the 60th percentile of their particular group. This guarantees only 40 percent teacher and student success according to the state. My 9 year old son’s teacher regrets having him (she did not say this, but the testing crunch was discussed. How can you advance a kid, according to a test, when they max the test?Last year he scored in the 98th percentile and is not likely to move into the 99the percentile this year. I am going to make sure that he does not take the tests this year. Enough is enough, I won’t hurt a colleague or my son through testing that means nothing.
correction: (missing s) “Why are teachers and educators the only ones troubled and puzzled by this disconnect?”
One of the detriments of focusing too much on data is that schools adopt what I call “band aid instruction”–interventions that patch little academic weaknesses but miss serious underlying deficiencies. For instance, in an effort to boost test scores, our school has implemented online practice into AYP-related classes and offered test prep for state tests and the ACT.
We’ve had strong gains on the state tests for three years, but our ACT scores have been stagnant. This comes as no surprise our teachers, who have cited weak reading comprehension as the fundamental struggle for a large portion of our student body. In addition to bolstering reading in all subject areas, we’ve asked for a robust reading remediation program that would entail assessing the reading level of all students, identifying students reading below grade level, and enrolling them in reading classes or after-school tutoring programs. We’ve made the same suggestions for a number of years, but we’ve made little headway.
“We’ve made the same suggestions for a number of years, but we’ve made little headway.”
Well, why would the “experts” listen to the teachers? Obviously the teachers have no clue as to the students’ deep need to be digitalized, datatized, sorted and separated, and labelled on their way to becoming completely mind numbed. I was going to use f$%^#d instead of numbed but remembered that as teachers we’re only allowed to use the one true correct “F” word–Failure–as we label our students, teachers and schools.
People are not data points on a graph. Not students. Not adults
and we haven’t even mentioned how children now refer to themselves as their data level. I am a level 3. if you work hard, you won’t be a level 2. try harder.
my goal for the new school year is to become a level 4 from a level 1
how sad for these kids.
Certainly no feel good or warm fuzzies when you here these conversations. Who wants to be a number?
I do! #666
I made my son’s school take his name off of a perfect score banner,I was not happy! What do they want my son to become? An arrogant snob who thinks this test makes him something special? And what of lower scoring children, are they now children as a lesser God? This is obscene and will only lead to a dismal stratified society I want no part of. God help us if we don’t come to our senses soon.
There are smart ways and stupid ways to do everything — analyzing systems, designing measures, gathering data, and using all that to inform practice is no different than anything else on that score (haha).
The problem is that amateurs and agenda-driven hacks are now telling people who actually know their field what to do.
The other problem is that people who actually know their field are not telling the amateurs and agenda-driven hacks to go jump in a lake.
I’m now retired, but as the Art Teacher at a k-8 public school it was always fun to talk to the sudents about what books they were reading. They loved talking about the characters and plots.
Last year that changed, they still wanted to discuss reading, only now it was their scores that they wanted to tell me about.
We are denying an entire generation the love of learning.
Yes, Diane, the focus is solely on raising the twos. It was the topic of staff meetings prior to my retirement as a music teacher–yes, we “specials” had to hear and contribute ways that we could do math and literacy in our 25 minute classes (at most 15 minutes of real instructional time). We had to write and use math concepts–and no, the writing and mathematical concepts could not use the language of our areas. It had to be just like that used on the state tests. Oh, I forgot, I taught kindergarten through second grade music.
Fast forward two years later, two years into my retirement, I was tutoring third and fourth grade students in reading AND math, despite my not knowing as much as most of the students when it came to math…or at least how they were to learn it. Where was our focus from January through state testing?? On the twos, of course! I have not gone back to tutoring, despite my love of working with students. I do not want to be used and use the children solely to generate data at the expense of students really learning how to think, how to solve problems, how to be creative. Teachers are a terrible thing to waste!
education’s four letter word
There is a new word in education that has rapidly dethroned a much used word in our modern vernacular: f@&k. The beauty, of what is affectionally known as “the F word”, is that users find it to be an extremely versatile word; hence its popularity. The F word can be used as a noun, verb, interjection, or adjective. Given that, it is not hard to see why the F word is used with such enthusiasm in so many circles. It’s often just that go to word.
Recently, however, the F word has been replaced in education circles by a word which many find to be infinitely more vulgar: data. With that adoption, many common phrases have now morphed using this new bon mot. Now, in staff rooms everywhere one may hear:
Data you!
Oh, data!
What the data? or WTD?
I don’t give a data!
You don’t give a data!
He doesn’t give a data!
She doesn’t give a data!
They don’t give a data!
Shut the data up!
Well, that’s where we are today, creating new meanings and uses of common words. But data may not be on the throne for too long. In the future, it, too, may be replaced with other four letter words found to be vulgar in education circles: Arne, Rhee, and Bill. We’ll see.
While I normally cheer the blog entries in this space, this one is unfortunately a distraction to raising the level of teaching, leading and policy making. Data driven decision making is a universally powerful tool in organizational effectiveness. When the people doing the data analysis and/or the decison making are so poorly trained around data that they don’t know how, they become dangerous. Think about what is said here: “They no longer discuss instructional improvements in their staff meetings; they no longer review opportunities for professional development related to classroom practice. They talk data. They hear from data experts.” Are you kidding me? The data ought to POINT toward instructional improvements or how to target PD schoolwide, systemwide, etc. If the discussions aren’t still about instructional improvements and PD based on the data, then these teachers should be fired. They can’t me mutually exclusive, and this blog seems to intimate that, irresponsibly. Further, it is not data driven decision making that is making the decision to focus on “golden band” students – those just under magic thresholds, it is the irresponsible educators who allow themselves to stoop to such a level, as well as the policy-makers that entice them to do so. Don’t blame the process, blame the professionals and the policy-makers for the misuse of data. Everybody wants to just do whatever they want without any accountability – forget it – those days are over.
If the data were responsibly used, that is, for information and support, that would be one thing.
But the data are now used to give bonuses and to fire teachers and principals and to close schools.
That is wrong, wrong, wrong.
There is a huge literature on why it is wrong.
Google National Research Council report of 2011 on “Incentives and Test-based Accountability”
A larger question that also needs to be raised though is “what is data?” I think the term “data” has lost its meaning in the education world. Data is not just quantitative measures or standardized test scores. Data is created by walking around the classroom and doing informal checks of understanding; creating anecdotal notes about a student’s progress, or the tests, quizzes and activities that teachers provide their students. These are all forms of data that are and should be used to guide instruction. We need to remember that teaching is a data-driven profession, but not necessarily the way the people in the top want to define it.
Student growth as measured by a mix of assessments must be part of the professionals’ evaluation. But that should be part of a “360 evaluation” system where parents, students (after a certain age), peer teachers on the same teams, and administrators can all assess any given professional’s performance. On a grade level team of (let’s say) 3 teachers, if there is a weak link who is not improving instruction, the peers will know and should have a safe way to determine how the team member responds to advice/mentoring/modeling/etc., or just plain contributing to the team. An evaluation that uses a mix of data and human input is very effective in school settings, just rarely employed in public schools.
You are assuming that “teacher quality” is the driving force in poor student achievement. It is not.
Our schools lose 40% or so of teachers in the first five years of their work; in inner-city schools, it is higher.
Don’t you think we should focus more on how to support and retain teachers, rather than how to find and fire?
Isn’t the attrition rate in many other fields a similar percentage? Most people don’t settle into their lasting profession immediately pipelined by their academic major, and ultimately find their niche down the road. Why would you expect teaching to be any different? Regardless, support and retention strategies are indeed more useful to improving the system than using test scores to threaten beginning teachers.
And yes, the use of a 360 eval must first be supportive/corrective. Only when a teacher doesn’t improve practice (as measured by the 360 process (peers and/or admin will know if teaching is improving) over an acceptable time frame (2-3 years?) should it be punitive or ground for dismissal. In terms of what the education system can most immediately control, yes, great teaching has the highest impact on student achievement. They can’t control poverty, housing, family educational history, first language, etc., which are indicators you’ll point to that are high correlates to student achievement, but why should education professionals focus on things they have no control over? How do we best mitigate against poverty, etc.?By doing the things teachers and administrators have he most control over – improving their own practice.
Do 50% of doctors and lawyers leave within five years of entering their profession?
Diane
No they don’t, but those are just two professions among thousands that have more of a vague pipleline from preservice. Further, specialized areas requiring medical or juris doctor degrees can’t be compared to a field requiring a bachelors to enter.. you are comparing apples and oranges. Medicine and law typically draw from those who were at the very top of their high school and/or college graduating class (conservatively the top decile), while the teaching force is largely populated from the second and third quartile high school graduate, and only smaller numbers from the top quartile and rarely from the top decile. Medicine and law draw from an entirely different labor market, and not ripe for this type of comparison. Contextual factors are part of the responsible use of data that we both would like to see in practice.
Name a profession that requires professional training that has a 50% dropout rate within five years.
Social workers? I don’t think so.
Or are you comparing teachers to hairdressers?
Maybe to manual laborers?
Data and data driven instruction has destroyed the beauty and the art of teaching and learning. Subjects of social studies, science, the arts have been pushed aside in favor of ELA and math test prep from which quite a lot of data can be collected. For many new teachers entering the field, this is all they know. For those of us who know what it is like to really teach from the heart, realize that a good teacher has the data stored in their heads. I do not need a piece of paper to tell me which of my students is having difficulty with math, reading, language arts, social studies or science. I would much rather a child get a well rounded and balanced education. These data pushers should realize that growth comes at different times for different children.
To Pontiac, So then how do the people who write your paycheck, the public, know if you are doing a good job if the evidence is stored in your head? For every one of us who “just knows” which students are having difficulty and makes the right adjustments to lesson planning, differentiates instruction, applies RTI strategies, etc., you have a peer who just continues throwing the spaghetti plate against the wall and hopes that enough noodles stick and not able to prevent noodles from falling to the floor because “this is how I was trained to teach, and I’m not changing”. Yes, the latter is a minority, but enough to do a lot of damage to children. This is why a 360 eval, well beyond the use of standardized tests, is so important, yet underused. Use of data to drive instructional changes/lesson planning/etc. ought not marginalize curricular areas such as the arts – to Diane’s earlier point – it must be used responsibly. Anyone who understand the arts knows that increasing arts abilities is highly correlated to increased language and math achievement, and therefore the arts should be used as a tool to reach attainiment in “the core” as well as to further arts prowess.
We ran out of reply levels above…..I was originally referring to the many many liberal arts majors, business majors, visual/performing arts majors, among others that ultimately settle in their careers through finding their true passion and expertise through early-career experiences, and often land in careers they didn’t know about in college. It is very common to not find one’s niche until age 30 or beyond, and to think that a very tough job like teaching should have low rates of early-career attrition is not realistic. Further, the worker of the 2000s often has a few subcareers in different fields within a career – this isn’t the 60s or even 80s any more in most of the labor market, and there should be no expectation that teachers will be any different. Of course I acknowlege the equity concerns between urban and suburban attrition rates, and we must do a better job of induction and pre-service to nurture urban educators. But policymakers and educational leaders must expect attrition and lead accordingly, not use it as an excuse for not adapting to the reality.
To EdLeadershipcrisis:
Wow, what a harsh and somewhat rude response to my post. In all my years teaching data has never been a part of my paycheck, I am not a statistician, I am a teacher. Data does not have the ability to express that a child who is a high level student who works hard and does well in class, but may suffer from test anxiety and not do well on a standardized test. More and more students are feeling pressure due to the amount of testing to collect data and are burning out very early on. Data does not show the extra time that many teachers put in at school before and after the school day to help their students achieve a well rounded education. Data does not show the outcomes discussions that students have in class or the thought process that goes into these discussions. It seems that the data is far more important to have to show to a school Quality Reviewer or to submit to a regional office.
I have always kept meaningful data on my students, in my head, in a record book and in individual student folders that are meaningful to me and my students, not to educrats that need to see numbers to put on a spreadsheet.
Sorry if my reply came off as rude – certainly not my intention, just trying to make a case for a workable evaluation system that doesn’t focus too much on test scores, but still yields a high degree of accountability. Having local school administrators make evaluations the way they have been done seemingly forever simply hasn’t worked, but I rarely see viable alternatives offered that ensures a high degree of accountability that professionals in most other fields are held to. We need a strong product – greater student achievement across all curricular areas – without excuses clouding the issue. We know it can be done as evidenced by research done by the likes of Reeves, Marzano, Elmore, Lemov, etc. But teachers need structural help, like less student contact and more time to master their craft. Taxpayers need to demand that of politicans and be willing to pay for it, but they need to be informed of the long term benefits.
I am not sure what you mean by “simply hasn’t worked.’ Our country is not in dire straits because of its public schools. It is in dire straits because of outsourcing, greedy corporations, the collapse of the economy in 2008, and the fact that the new jobs are low-wage jobs. Our economy is going through a change, with great income inequality and a hollowing out of the middle class. That has nothing to do with evaluation or accountability. And yes, your previous comment was indeed rude.
The educational system, at least in the northeast and midwest, worked only until the 60s , then began to decay as early as the mid 60s when it failed to adapt its model to accommodate the new faces and backgrounds of the students sitting at the classroom desks; and agian in and after the 80s when the system failed to adapt its model to accommodate the changing employment landscape of the factories moving south or overseas. The “system” meaning nuts to bolts – policy, university teacher prep, staff eval, curriculum, instruction, leadership practices, and many more adult actions for all those in the system. You’ve applied more recent phenomena to a problem that dates back decades – the factory model of service delivery. The field has made strides, but at a snails pace compared to the way other fields have needed to adapt to stay viable. Low accountability is largely to blame for that snails pace, although it can be expected to be slower in human services fields as opposed to many others.