A drive for data is killing schools

An article from yesterday's NYT detailing the plight of the new Principals within the NYC school system, and how well or not so well new Principals are doing.

As a teacher, I have argued that this drive for data and showing progress via data is counter-productive. A percentage from a standardized test means jack to me, I'm sorry.

Just today with the announcement of Sotomayor from the Obama Administration (boy was I wrong eh?!?! - DOH!) for the next Supreme Court Justice, we heard about this famous case ruling concerning firefighters. At issue was whether a government could take a standardized test that no African-American passed and use that to justify promotions.

Inherent bias has been known to happen in such "standardized" tests, and to judge a student's career on such tests is inherently unfair, unethical, unwise, and asinine.

As a Special Educator who does the initial testing to determine whether a student qualifies for Special Education services, I take my job extremely seriously and I take great pains to asses the child fairly, properly, and with the utmost care. This is because the minute I determine that X student needs Special Education services, that student is needing those services: a virtual label is slapped on their forehead for life. The fact that they were a Special Education student will be in their school record for life, and it will likely be in their medical records for life as most parents consult with their family pediatrician about such needs.

To say I take my responsibility serious, is an understatement of epic proportions. Some in my field, including some administrators do not get it, and they take the tests I do as gospel, and they rely far too easily and quickly on the numbers instead of looking INTO the data. And, quite honestly, I have been encouraged/told/forced to use the numbers to justify or make my case on some occasions.

A graft from the article: "Peter McNally, executive vice president of the principals’ union — which has generally supported the mayor’s reforms — said the biggest complaint from members was “that they spend more time looking at the data than in classrooms observing and supporting instruction.” Indeed, many had deep reservations about a system in which, as one principal put it, “my report card is my boss.”"

Principals here complaining about looking at data...well, yeah, that blows. Imagine being the poor bastard who had to subject his/her students to all that data gathering...it's not a lot of fun gathering the data and it's a ton of hard work for what tantamounts to what may be a marginally good, broad view of a student's ability in a given subject area or topic.