Data. When I started administration 5 years ago, data to me was just statistics from a sports league. Any sports league. Be a former PE teacher and sports junkie I was into numbers. Who was leading the league in hits, average, touchdowns, yards per catch, run after catch. You name it and I could probally tell you about it and I probally still can. Only now its CST scores, Celdt Scores, grades, progress reports, attendance, cluster reports, writing scores. Ask me about it and I can figure out how to get it and break it down for you. Bragging you may ask, well maybe, (it is my blog 
) however in this case it is…., ok it is bragging. If there is one thing I have learned over the last 5 years it is if you cannot mine the data you may not have a future.
In this age of NCLB, which seems to be such a hot topic in the edublogosphere, that I hesitate to even mention it, you must know the data.
In my humble opinion data needs to be broken down into some of the following:
- Mine the data for usable information
- Understand the meaning behind the numbers.
- For example: what is a 3 really on the CST (California Standards test)
- It is basic in a 5 scale rubric (right in the middle)
- it is a scaled score of less than 350
- It is a student who is on the bubble to becoming proficient.
- For example: what is a 3 really on the CST (California Standards test)
- Know how to dig deeper:
- How do you find out how a 3 is scored
- It is a compilation of cluster scores within a certain test.
- How do you find out how a 3 is scored
- Know where to go to get the data
- Does your district have a website, do you use a third party provider
- And, drumroll please, know how to present the data to your staff in a way that makes it meaningful, easy to understand and easy to access.
Point #5 is the most important. If you, as an administrator, cannot present data to your teachers in a way that they can understand, your schools road to improvement will be tough.
In this day and age of accountability it pays to know your technology and how to acces information about your students. Data should be used in most, if not all, of your educational descisions and should be a focus in how your teachers prepare.
Data driven decision making is an oft used phrase but one of high importance. I was lucky in that I stumbled into an AP job working for a principal that loved data. At first I didn’t really understand what all the fuss was and now today I love crunching the numbers. What I love more is when the principal and I present the data to our teachers and see that light go on. That makes it all worthwile.
As the counselor here, I am often the one who presents behavior data to the staff. It’s always a challenge to put up numbers and graphs up there and still have them stay with me! I’m working on it, though.
Rick,
The best way that I have found to present data to staff is to make sure that they can connect to it some way. When i just throw up charts I see their eyes glaze over. If I can personalize it, I often get better results.
Breaking things down by class, or teacher and then handing it to them and then showing the graph to them works well for me.
Also, if you have access to a computer cart, having the teachers work hands on with the data has also been another winner for us. We have been using our new computer cart quite often with staff development concerning data.
Brian