What are the essential data points in education? Not what most people think.
What are the essential data points in education?
I get asked that question a lot and it’s totally understandable given we’ve had nearly three decades of conditioning that has led us to think that somehow a data point or metric exists that can bring the educational enterprise suddenly into focus. However, just because we’ve been conditioned to think something doesn’t mean it’s true, and in this case it is not.
But the question, altered ever so slightly, has tremendous merit. The altered question should be this: what is the one thing we owe to every student to accomplish during their education? That question will of course ultimately lead to a need for evidence, but a very different kind of evidence than those seeking the magical data point might anticipate.
My answer to that question about the one thing we owe to every student is this: we know what the profile of a successful adult looks like, and since we owe it to every student to do what we can to help them be successful, we owe them access to it.
Here's the profile, and it is surprisingly simple: successful adults are really smart in a few ways—often just one or two—sort of smart where they need to be in order to survive or do their work, and not smart at almost everything else. In other words, the magic is in helping every student be really smart at something so they have a shot at success. Do that and access is granted. Don’t do it and access is denied, along with a massive set of negative and unnecessary consequences.
Only schools aren’t set up to help all students master something. Mostly they’re set up to prevent students from being deficient in a few areas given the way accountability occurs. That isn’t a recipe for effective schools or preparing students for life, but of accomplishing the bare minimum and mistaking that with success. Teachers and administrators fight this nonsense every day but it’s a structural problem and one that will require a rethinking of what our schools are and how they work.
Because the accountability function in schools is satisfied when students can become jack of a few things (literacy and numeracy mostly) and master of none, that often leaves providing access to the profile in the hands of those outside the schools. If you happen to be someone lucky enough to have that sort of access you’ll be in good shape, but a great many of our students who come from challenging circumstances will only gain access if the schools provide it. That’s an equity statement you could drive a truck through.
Now to the point about evidence. A highly leverageable piece of evidence for shaping a school seems to me to be the percentage of students who walk across the graduation stage having been given access to the formula of what it takes to be a successful adult within the walls of the school. Or better yet, the percentage of at-risk students who don’t really have access to the formula outside school that gained access within the school. I would argue the numbers in our current environment are surprisingly low, and unlikely to rise within our current accountability structures.
I would also argue that visibility into those numbers offers a powerful way to restructure the educational experience even if the formal accountability retains its unhelpful form. Whatever the number, we would not be fit to call ourselves educators if we did not immediately consider ways to increase it to the benefit of our students, which would be transformative and frankly exciting for any school and the educators in it.
So while no magic data points exists or I would argue will ever exist, there are certain pieces of research-based evidence that can drive us towards new definitions of excellence and pursuing those evidences I believe is the way to go.
I get asked that question a lot and it’s totally understandable given we’ve had nearly three decades of conditioning that has led us to think that somehow a data point or metric exists that can bring the educational enterprise suddenly into focus. However, just because we’ve been conditioned to think something doesn’t mean it’s true, and in this case it is not.
But the question, altered ever so slightly, has tremendous merit. The altered question should be this: what is the one thing we owe to every student to accomplish during their education? That question will of course ultimately lead to a need for evidence, but a very different kind of evidence than those seeking the magical data point might anticipate.
My answer to that question about the one thing we owe to every student is this: we know what the profile of a successful adult looks like, and since we owe it to every student to do what we can to help them be successful, we owe them access to it.
Here's the profile, and it is surprisingly simple: successful adults are really smart in a few ways—often just one or two—sort of smart where they need to be in order to survive or do their work, and not smart at almost everything else. In other words, the magic is in helping every student be really smart at something so they have a shot at success. Do that and access is granted. Don’t do it and access is denied, along with a massive set of negative and unnecessary consequences.
Only schools aren’t set up to help all students master something. Mostly they’re set up to prevent students from being deficient in a few areas given the way accountability occurs. That isn’t a recipe for effective schools or preparing students for life, but of accomplishing the bare minimum and mistaking that with success. Teachers and administrators fight this nonsense every day but it’s a structural problem and one that will require a rethinking of what our schools are and how they work.
Because the accountability function in schools is satisfied when students can become jack of a few things (literacy and numeracy mostly) and master of none, that often leaves providing access to the profile in the hands of those outside the schools. If you happen to be someone lucky enough to have that sort of access you’ll be in good shape, but a great many of our students who come from challenging circumstances will only gain access if the schools provide it. That’s an equity statement you could drive a truck through.
Now to the point about evidence. A highly leverageable piece of evidence for shaping a school seems to me to be the percentage of students who walk across the graduation stage having been given access to the formula of what it takes to be a successful adult within the walls of the school. Or better yet, the percentage of at-risk students who don’t really have access to the formula outside school that gained access within the school. I would argue the numbers in our current environment are surprisingly low, and unlikely to rise within our current accountability structures.
I would also argue that visibility into those numbers offers a powerful way to restructure the educational experience even if the formal accountability retains its unhelpful form. Whatever the number, we would not be fit to call ourselves educators if we did not immediately consider ways to increase it to the benefit of our students, which would be transformative and frankly exciting for any school and the educators in it.
So while no magic data points exists or I would argue will ever exist, there are certain pieces of research-based evidence that can drive us towards new definitions of excellence and pursuing those evidences I believe is the way to go.
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