If more schools would only look to the data…

31 Jul If more schools would only look to the data…

By Dale Chu

Two policy wonks I respect and admire, Charlie Barone and Rianna Saslow, recently co-authored an article in The 74 highlighting the key strategies used by “spotlight schools” in Colorado and Massachusetts to help lift student achievement. Notable among these is the centrality of assessment data and its role in guiding strategy and smart resource allocation decisions — something the Collaborative for Student Success is raising awareness about. These strategies are explored in depth via two new reports from Education Reform Now.

Here’s Barone and Saslow on the primacy of data-driven decision-making:

High-performing schools use data as a guiding light to drive, monitor, and improve not just student achievement but every aspect of their operations. 

According to Executive Director Bill Spirer of Springfield Preparatory Charter School, a K-8 school in Springfield, Massachusetts, this “obsession with data” is absolutely essential: “[It’s] not in the spirit of turning our students into data points, but in terms of understanding where we can improve and evolve. … We … use data for really everything, whether it’s for finances, for student attendance or for student behavior issues.”

From the Colorado report:

When we surveyed 13 spotlight schools, the word “data” was mentioned by respondents a resounding 26 times throughout their survey responses – more than any other key word besides “student” and “teacher.” 

From the Massachusetts report, one school leader shared:

“We use [state testing] data at the beginning of the year as part of the student onboarding experience in August.” From there, “for every single student, we set both a math and a reading growth goal for the end of the year outside of the standardized test, measured and monitored by benchmark assessments three times a year… those interim assessments allow us to pause in the middle of the year, review the data, reflect on where we’re on track, and when we are off track, being able to aggressively intervene to move the needle.”

Note that this contrasts sharply with claims by critics of [state testing] that the data is not useful in informing instruction.

These compelling accounts from high-performing, high-poverty schools remind me of the school I led once upon a time, and our fanatical obsession with data as a tool for helping more kids read and succeed. We would be so lucky if more schools and districts were similarly fixated and unapologetically laser-focused.