Eye on Leadership
What if we looked at data through a jeweler's loop?

As I study the data that informs our leadership work— research studies from the field, school review recommendations, the NYU (New York University) Report, notes from conversations with principals and district leaders, and the leadership self-review section recently written for a review of Cornerstone’s delivery of services, I am more and more convinced that a number of our conclusions are true.  These are two:  (1) we know a lot about what the research says is required of leaders to improve student learning, but (2) we are far from effectively using what we know to translate knowledge into successful practice.

I am convinced this is true when I look at the stacks of leadership books that grow like urban expansion around my bed, or the articles that I arrange and rearrange to make space for more on my desk, the coffee table, the kitchen counter.   That truth is further confirmed when I skim once more yellowing hard copies of the Cornerstone Toolkit leadership section or my personal archive of leadership newsletter articles.  When the familiarity of print on paper lets my mind wander, I turn to my computer only to be seduced by websites that know my history and pop up “edu-wisdom”—nothing new, just something newly packaged , available for purchase, and summoning me this time to “do something else” with the information.

My guess is that when teams look at data that do not match your efforts, many of you are being summoned as well to “do something else”.  The question, then, is “What else?”  Our upcoming Cornerstone leadership video conference series will give us an opportunity to wrestle with that one.

As a refresher, here is what the research says:

A study by Armstrong and Anthes (2001) highlights several elements associated with effective data use: strong leadership; a district-wide culture that supports the use of data for continuous improvement; a structure for supporting and training teachers to use data; a close accounting of every student’s performance on academic standards; and a well-defined, data-driven school improvement process. Leadership at the district level, and from the principal and a coach at the school level, have been identified as key elements to successfully using data in school reform efforts (Center for Collaborative Education, 2001, 2002, 2003). A process that involves teachers in data analysis also is essential, and Wade (2001) emphasizes that as many teachers as possible are needed to support effective data use in schools. It is most effective when teacher decisions about instructional effectiveness are based on assessments of students’ actual proficiencies in various skill areas (Pardini, 2000).

This is knowledge we have.   What if we looked at our work on using data?  How much of that work reflects our knowledge?   Wouldn’t it be interesting to collect the evidence that supports our conclusions?

That said, what might we include on a starter list for “What else?”  Joan Richardson offers these among other suggestions in “The Numbers Game,” Tools for Schools, Oct/Nov 2000:

• School teams serious about using data begin by checking their assumptions at the door.  Instead of making quick assumptions, they look at the data, generate questions, and explore different possibilities in pursuit of answers.
• They analyze the data by asking important questions.  What is the lowest performing group? What is the highest performing group? Are boys and girls performing equally well in reading? Are there dips in reading achievement between different grades? If so, which grades? What are the reading levels of various language groups? Do different socio-economic groups have different reading levels? Are reading levels similar between various racial and ethnic groups?
• They brainstorm causes. Once a school team has objectively evaluated the data, the next step is to suggest possible explanations. What is going on instructionally? What is going on with the curriculum? Where are the gaps? Why do these gaps exist?   If we are not getting the results we want, what are possible reasons?
• They summarize the data, describing what the data tells them and they make these summaries available to the larger school community so that everyone can be engaged in monitoring progress.

The next phase of our journey begins with the upcoming leadership video conference series which will include a series of articles to read or reread, but more importantly, some opportunities for collecting and discussing the evidence that we are effectively using what we know.   And why the jeweler’s loops?  We will keep a few on the table at each video conference to remind ourselves  that for the next several months and beyond, our investigations of data will require us to look not only at numbers, structures,  and strategies, but to look also for the “what else?”

Additional  Sources

Armstrong, J., & Anthes, K. (2001, November). How data can help: Putting information to work to raise student achievement. American School Board Journal, 188(11), 38-41.

Center for Collaborative Education. (2002, April). The role of external facilitators in
whole school reform: Teachers’ perceptions of how coaches influence school change. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA.

Center for Collaborative Education. (2004). The challenge of coaching: Providing
cohesion among multiple reform agendas. Research and Evaluation Program,
Boston, MA.

Lachat, Mary Ann and Stephen Smith, “Practices That Support Data Use in Urban High Schools” in Journal of Education for Students Placed At Risk (Vol 10), #3, p. 333-349.

Pardini, P. (2000, Winter). Data, well done: Six examples of data-driven decision
making at work. Journal of Staff Development, 21(1), 12-18.

Wade, H. H. (2001). Data inquiry and analysis for educational reform. (ERIC Document
Reproduction Service No. ED461911).