Your Data Dream. My Data Nightmare.More at the link.
One of my greatest frustrations as a teacher is listening to those who work beyond the classroom dream up brilliant plans for reforming schools that are simply impossible to implement because they’re dependent on new resources that no one is willing to provide.
Take the constant drumbeat around “data informed decision-making” as a case in point.
Poke your nose into any conversation about teaching and learning and you’re bound to hear “how easy it would be to improve education” in our country if schools were just willing to “confront the brutal facts” about student achievement.
The best teachers and learning teams are “hungry for facts,” prognosticators will argue. They take an “action orientation” towards numbers, looking for “trends and patterns” that can inform their instruction.
And of course, someone is BOUND to throw out the ever-popular argument that our schools need to take a more “business-like approach to data.”
...
4/17/10
Data Driven To Madness
Data. The bane of teachers.
