The Data Room: Education Warfare

See if you can relate to this scenario:

Parent:  I guess you really like having your summers off.

Me:  Well, actually, I work during the summer.  I have about 2 1/2 weeks off.

Parent:  Really???  (Look of confusion.)  What do you do in the summer?

If you're an educator, you can appreciate the humor in this exchange.  From late February until early August, what I do is prepare for the next school year.   This year my preparation involves establishing a data room.  My principal and I are busy looking at the research and at articles to decide how we want our data room to look.  We're also looking to find other middle schools in the state who have data rooms, so we can take some teacher leaders and go visit a data room.  We know that a huge part of success is getting teacher buy-in. 

There are a couple of things we have to keep in mind about data and data rooms.  As Scott Mohon, one of Shelby County's test coordinators recently said, "It's not about the numbers but the stories those numbers tell."  We don't look at data because data is fun.  We look at data because data can tell us why students aren't successful, so we can begin to figure out what to do about it.  Another great reminder comes from the article "Using Data Rooms to Map Your Way to Success" (linked below):  "In creating data rooms, administrators need to stress to faculty members that the rooms are not designed to add to their workloads or criticize their teaching. . . . [W]e're not asking them to do more.  We're asking them to throw away some stuff and do it differently . . . pare away things that are not as important." 

Using Data Rooms to Map Your Way to Success

In another article about data, one of the school's math teacher's said, "We've always had the data, but my goal in doing this [establishing a data room] is it's very visual.  Teachers can come in and see it.  It's not just paper sitting there." 

But, warns Principal Gasparello, "It can look nice, but if this doesn't change the way we do our instruction, then it doesn't mean anything."

Data Room Keeps Teachers, Students Focused on Goals

In some schools, data rooms are known as "war rooms" after military strategy rooms.  And to a great degree that's an accurate depiction.  As schools come under greater and greater scrutiny, there is less room for mistakes.  That means we have to pay closer attention to every decision we make and have a strong rationale for why we make it--not because we need to be accountable to politicians who make laws about things they have never experienced but because we help guide the lives of children who are looking to us to help propel them forward.  They deserve the best we can give them.