Not Everything That Counts Can Be Counted: Using Data Responsibly in School Improvement
Use of educational data is one facet of school improvement that has emerged most powerfully in recent years. Governments, districts, and school officials are increasingly turning to test scores, attendance data, classroom assessments, behavioural data, and other indicators to measure quality and make decisions. However, while educational data provides a significant perspective on how schools are doing, educational data in and of themselves do not improve schools.
Rather, educators improve schools when they make sense of the data, understand a wider range of factors, and take informed action. The equity-minded educational leaders who make use of data will need to exercise not only expertise in data literacy, but also sound professional judgment, ethical leadership, and a desire to see all students helped, not harmed, by the presence of data.
Data Should Inform, Not Dictate, Decisions
One of the most common misperceptions in education is that schools should be “data-driven.” Those words, in fact, send a slight shiver down my spine. Commonplace as the expression is, it doesn’t sit comfortably with me because it implies that those who make decisions in education require direction from data. Consequently, this perspective can leave educational issues in the hands of numerical results, disregarding the professional wisdom of educators.
Instead, data-informed decision making might be a more suitable philosophy. Data are useful evidence, but only one element of decision making. In addition, teachers and school leaders also consider classroom observations, learner backgrounds, family circumstances, what is happening in the community, and their professional experience. While numbers indicate patterns, they rarely indicate the reasons behind the patterns. Therefore, good educational leadership practice requires critical questions before solutions.
Challenging Misconceptions About Educational Data
Furthermore, another barrier to the ethical use of data is the perception that educational data are neutral and unbiased. In reality, all data are products of the social, economic, and institutional factors present at the time of collection. For instance, student test scores may be affected by poverty, disability, language issues, the school environment, student attendance, or learning tools.
Similarly, schools view improved exam scores as an indicator of improved educational quality. While academic outcomes are important, there are many aspects of learning: creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, resilience, well-being, citizenship, social and emotional development that are equally important and cannot be fully assessed through testing. Therefore, as educators we need to guard against allowing test scores to be the only evaluation of the effectiveness of our schools.
Looking at Data Through an Equity Lens
Moreover, educational leaders who engage in responsible data use should look beyond averages to consider the educational experiences of various learner groups. Most school data are aggregate and do not reveal inequities in student learning outcomes along gender, disability, socioeconomic status, language, ethnic, or geographic groupings.
Accordingly, an equity mind-set toward data includes disaggregating data and using multiple data sources. Attendance data, observation data, learner data, behaviour data, student voice, parent voice, and in-class participation data augment our understanding of the learners’ experiences. As a result, this mind-set of data usage lends itself to being less learner deficit in understanding poor performance and more about finding barriers to access.
Consequently, when schools view their work through the lens of opportunity gaps instead of achievement gaps, they are better equipped to design and implement targeted interventions to support each child’s success.
Leadership Makes the Difference
Ultimately, leadership must foster an organisational culture of enquiry rather than compliance for data to make sense. Indisputably, there seems to be fear in schools where data are used for the purpose’s accountability. Effective leadership creates a school climate where trust, collaboration, and shared responsibility prevail. They create learning communities among teachers where they collaborate to analyse evidence, challenge assumptions, share best teaching practices, and strategize for improvement based on evidence. In addition, professional development on data literacy prepares teachers with knowledge to understand and use data effectively to enhance teaching practices.
Equally important, monitoring. Continuous school improvement is a process, not a destination. It involves the processes of collecting evidence, reflective practice, improvement, and the assessment of the impact of efforts. Therefore, only when a school considers data use a continuous learning process will improvement efforts be sustainable.
Recommendations for Educational Leaders
To this end, other actions school leaders could promote to develop responsible and equity-centred data use include promoting data use for decision-making that is data-informed as opposed to data-driven; building the data literacy of teachers through a continuous professional learning process; promoting data use for decision-making that involves the analysis of data in professional learning communities; promoting the use of multiple evidence sources, including qualitative and quantitative data, in decision-making; promoting the disaggregation of data to identify inequities and opportunity gaps; promoting a culture of trust, openness, and shared responsibility in using data to make decisions that is for improving rather than for punishing; and monitoring the progress of interventions and changing course based on new evidence as opposed to one-time-only data analysis.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the future for school improvement is not data collection, it is responsible data use. As educators, we collect data in our schools because we want to do more for learning, not learn to do more. Indeed, data inform our curiosity, our decisions, and our drive for equity. Furthermore, together with curiosity about context, ethical leadership, and the desire to learn along together, we can use data for good. Ultimately, it is the responsible data use that will empower our schools to improve teaching and learning, close the gap, and provide all learners with a fair shot at success. After all, it is the people behind the numbers who will change schools and not the numbers.
WISDOM KOUDJO KLU,
EDUCATIONIST/COLUMNIST,
GREATER ACCRA REGION.
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