Posted on

Hot piles of data.

via GIPHY

Addendum: I wrote a follow-up four days later: Adding It Up

Well, today we had a data discussion. And it wasn’t pretty. I got a little excited when I saw that the SBA ‘Brief Writes’ had gone up, but that was mostly for 7th grade. And though I shared so much with the 7th-grade team, I tried to sell the 8th-grade team on having students do them, but with no luck, except for one colleague who worked with me the last three weeks before the test. In essence, and in the most passive way possible, an idea came from a coworker for “no excuses” and wanted to see all the data with teachers’ name tied to it. I don’t mind if people see my numbers. Want my data? My age? My shoe size? Sure. But numbers never tell the whole story. Not 0% in one subject, or 8% in another.

But how do you talk about data in a constructive, honest, and collaborative way without it becoming personal and toxic? I am genuinely curious. It can’t be mean-spirited and snotty, nor can it be sugar-coated when the numbers are there. All I know is I asked everyone who would listen to please consider using the rubrics for the Brief Writes so students would know what exactly would be expected of them, whether they got a narrative, explanatory or argumentative prompt. The students performed better on the longer performance task writes, so that’s comforting. And my Honors kids did well. And some of my Essentials kids met proficient, which is quite a feat.But I want all students to do well. This idea that a teacher is ‘bad’ based on one data point, proficiency, is dangerous, and it seems the loudest teachers perpetuate this. But that’s usually how most things work.

Now what? So why am I feeling so awful after a few comments at a meeting? Why does it bother me so? Because those comments move nothing forward. Nothing.

One thing that I pray will change the conversation from the blame-throwers to constructive is the movement toward showing students’ growth and not just proficiency. How wonderful would it be to have a student who is new to the country and language go from a second-grade level to sixth grade or more, and that would be the number celebrated? I’ll be one who is paddling that river, keeping it flowing, even though I’m not directly responsible for the ELA scores this year. But like an old fire horse, I still hear the siren: once an ELA teacher, always one. And I hope to be one again.

Why?

Because I’m good at figuring out what students need, and amazing at it when I have great collaborators, which I do this year. As Mr. Rogers said, “look for the helpers.”

[embeddoc url=”https://blog0rama.edublogs.org/files/2017/05/SBA-Brief-Write-v7ry7o.pptx” download=”all” viewer=”microsoft” ]

[embeddoc url=”https://blog0rama.edublogs.org/files/2017/10/Top-Five-Things-SBA-Brief-Writes-pyvz68-pl7pcm.docx” download=”all” viewer=”microsoft” ]

This idea that a teacher is ‘bad’ based on one data point, proficiency, is dangerous, and it seems the loudest teachers perpetuate this. But that’s usually how most things work.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

One thought on “Hot piles of data.

  1. And I sat in the same data meeting, feeling helpless and useless. I can’t see students’ scores, because my content isn’t tested. The writers of the software think I have nothing to learn, nothing to add. I am given no specific role to play to help, and little support (until, hopefully, just now) to understand what needs to happen. This whole thing is ugly and clunky and inefficient. I feel like other countries are using biometrics and nanoparticles while we are still sawing off limbs to save the patient.

Comments are closed.