Identify the best evidence for school and student improvement

“Drowning in data.”

If you’ve had a conversation with a K-12 teacher about his or her experience as an educator in the post-NCLB era, there’s a good chance that this phrase came up in the conversation. The premise behind No Child Left Behind and the large amounts of student assessment data that resulted was the assumption that an accountability system would affect daily interaction between teachers and students through classroom-level decision making.

Instead, in the frenzy to facilitate improvement and to use the myriad types of data available, schools and districts nationwide tried to identify and implement quick solutions, such as giving teachers time to use the data in newly formed professional learning communities (PLCs). Absent clear direction on how to use data, what often has resulted is analysis paralysis: teachers and principals spending time analyzing data without a clear idea of how to use it to affect the core practice of teaching and learning — daily instruction.