![]() It seems educators, reformers, and advocates everywhere are committed to the idea of “data-driven decision-making.” Presumably, this term and its popularity are outgrowths of increased visibility and accountability in public education along with the rapid growth of the role of data in other parts of our lives. And, let’s be honest: it sounds good. It makes us feel secure. It sounds really smart. And, if done well it probably could be transformative. In order for data-driven decision-making to have much meaning, however, we need to maintain a critical eye and keep asking questions (let’s at least try to keep it from being pure jargon anyway): DATA … what’s data and what’s not data? The brands that survey us and track our online and buying patterns never really ask if the data they see can be verified by a nationally recognized higher education institution. It doesn’t matter. It’s data, and they use it for what it is. In education, we need to get the idea of data out of the clouds (only data wonks understand it), out of institutional paradigms (data-driven and evidence-based are not synonymous), and demystify it a bit (every interaction with another human is full of data points). Data isn’t just delivered to us from the researchers or the “data people” at central office. We don’t need a published report or a study to have and use data. When we talk to a student and ask what she is interested in, what her concerns are, how she is feeling: that’s data. We just need to ask. If you ask 30 students at your school if they have been bullied in the last month and 15 say yes, you have data that suggests a bullying problem – University X doesn’t need to confirm it. DATA … WITH PEOPLE … Is the data merely accessible or is it actually consumable? In its current state, data in education feels too complex, distant, and obtuse. I am a reasonably educated guy, and when I look at some of the data and spreadsheets that actually get shared from time to time with students and parents and even with teachers more frequently, my eyes go crossed. And, when I think about indicators like school climate that might actually be helpful in real-time, there’s no good data being captured. Because it makes sense in a database – or to someone building a database – doesn’t mean data makes sense in the hands of those who are supposed to interpret and use it. Because we can report on it annually as a school system or community and say “yep, we track that” or dig it out occasionally for a grant means little to its usefulness in our daily work. In fact, data that is six clicks deep in a database or learning management system should probably not even be considered available to most users. It’s not consumable anyway. Data-driven decisions start with our ability to process data in terms we understand and in the context of decisions and actions we actually control. DATA…WITH PEOPLE…WITH DECISIONS TO MAKE Who are the deciders and what do they get to decide? As you might guess from my previous writing and work, I wonder, in particular, where our students are in this conversation. In my experience, students generally don’t have much say on important issues in their schools (I am being gentle here). So, obviously, school data isn’t something we discuss with them. Instead, we treat students merely as data providers not data users. Meanwhile, they collect and analyze data everyday and in every interaction and use it to make important personal and relational decisions. But, there is a challenge here for teachers and other staff too. Most teachers I talk with view data as more of a tool of external accountability than professional process and continuous improvement. And, often the data they are accountable for reflect variables they have little-to-no control over, particularly in the short term. So basically, 1.) they have access to data that doesn’t relate to their actual realm of decision-making; and/or, 2.) they are trying to make decisions (and someone wants the data that supports it) and they don’t have it. But, if data-driven decision-making is critical to the improvement of schools and development of communities, shouldn’t it be critical (available, consumable, and relevant to decision-making) across all stakeholders? If the range of consumable data, data usage, and the related (or unrelated) decision-making processes are narrow, unclear, or inconsistent, then we can be pretty sure our data-driven outcomes will be as well. Like anything else, the data on data-driven decision-making will likely reflect the quality of implementation not the idea itself.
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![]() I came across the following reflection this week in an article capturing lessons learned from talking with students, in this case about some student survey results: “(Dr. Deborah Moore) said that in subsequent conversations the youths lamented that “they don’t feel like they have a real school experience; they have more of a series of classroom experiences.” This seems like a simple statement, an obvious, if concerning, insight by the students. But, if we take it seriously, the implications are actually quite profound – and are potentially an incredibly powerful place to start if we really want to reform education. In the true form of a great insight, it generates tons of questions: Why don’t we talk to students more when we make decisions about them and their education? Why isn’t student engagement fundamental to education reform efforts? Why don’t students ever get to see, interpret, or process the data we collect about them or their schools? I could go on with the student-as-stakeholder-in-education questions, but I could start to spiral pretty quickly. It’s a bit of a soap-box issue, so I’ll spare you here. Instead, I want to focus on the bigger question underlying the student insight: What if we made decisions with the goal of intentionally creating an educational experience for students in our schools (rather than attempting to deliver education to students through our schools)? The former requires common vision, goals, effective communication, and shared leadership. The latter is easily fragmented, highly variable, and makes it difficult to identify weak leadership. If we started with crafting the educational/school experience for students first: Measuring Success: Would we continue to emphasize only the metrics that show whether or not a student has “succeeded” in school, or would we expand to look more broadly to understand how and if a school has succeeded for the student? Expectations: Would we set and articulate our expectations for students on the basis of short-term metrics like test scores, or would we use these metrics to engage students in creating a vision for what they want their lives to look like in the future and help them articulate how education can help them get there? Student Voice: Would we still treat the traditional survey as our best (or only) tool for getting student insights or feedback – or might we engage them in building, evaluating, and improving the educational experience through ongoing partnership and dialogue? Communication: Would we still consider school communication to be those messages from adults to students (or school to parents), or would we systematically integrate students into content creation, communication, and promotion – and not just consumption of school information? Technology: Would we continue to proliferate classroom-management technologies that teachers choose a-la-carte, meaning students accumulate 5-6 logins and are left to navigate that many technology platforms just to know what’s what for their classes? There is so much to discuss and so much potentially to reframe and reassess if we apply this student insight and start seeking to intentionally craft a holistic educational/school experience. While there are many more questions to explore, we do know from these students: A series of classrooms doesn’t make a school. A series of classes doesn’t make an education. ![]() With school starting to ramp up around the country over the next few weeks, it seemed a good time to offer a long overdue shout-out to one of my former teachers, Mr. Spiegl, my 7th grade science teacher. Mr. Spiegl assigned my class a science project called the “Distillation of Wood” in which we used a Bunsen Burner and some beakers and such to break a piece of wood down into its component parts, liquids, gases, etc. Obviously, I didn’t learn much lasting about wood, or science for that matter, based on that description. But, that’s sort of the point. Knowledge of the elements of wood wasn’t going to take me very far in life. But, these lessons from the “Distillation of Wood” experiment continue to be somewhat profound:
As I continue to work in and around education and expand my world into the realm of education technology, I am ever mindful of the distinctions between information and knowledge, between content and process, between education and learning. It’s not about the tool. It’s the process the tool allows and, in the hands of a great teacher, the world of learning it can open up. The nation is abuzz with the Common Core Standards. From Arne Duncan to TV pundits to Governors to teachers, everyone has an opinion – and it’s usually pretty strongly held.
I candidly don’t know the arguments deeply enough to have a strong belief either way, but I sense a lot of up-side to shared standards like this – but that’s not the purpose of this blog. Academics don’t live in isolation. And, academic outcomes are not manifest merely of academic inputs. The role of school climate in a broad range of student and school outcomes, including those promoted and supported by the Common Core, has long been understood (if not effectively implemented): “Positive school climate is associated with and/or predictive of academic achievement, school success, effective violence prevention, students’ healthy development, and teacher retention.”[i] I suspect every person reading this worked harder, and perhaps even achieved more, for one teacher than another – regardless of whether or not you liked the subject. The teacher respected you and as a sign of respect back, you worked hard. Every student I ever worked with who found success despite significant life challenges had that one Principal or teacher or coach who they didn’t want to disappoint. So, they decided to go to school even when they felt like skipping. Every teacher I have ever met taught better and engaged students better when s/he felt safe and supported by her colleagues and school leadership. The school context, not merely the curriculum, affected his/her ability to deliver positive academic outcomes. And yet, it seems like we keep forgetting this! Improving academic standards and expectations is obviously critical to education reform. But, I humbly predict that much of the success, or lack thereof, of Common Core, at least in the next 5-8 years, will be attributable to the context in which the standards are implemented. In other words, the Common Core will succeed where there is a positive school climate supporting it. Alternately, without a positive school climate, no amount of new Common Core Standards will deliver the academic outcomes we all desire. Obviously, my humble prediction here may be wrong (I rarely “do” predictions). But, don’t we at least know enough now, at a time of such energy and investment in education reform, to at least bring school climate out of the academic research and out of the shadows? Isn’t it at least smart strategy to prioritize this leading indicator beyond its current lagging position? Won’t we know more and sooner about the direction of Common Core if we do? Whether we articulate and track the standards effectively or not, I believe school climate is the common core of Common Core. [i] “School Climate: Research, Policy, Practice, and Teacher Education” by Jonathan Cohen, Elizabeth McCabe, Nicholas Michelli, Terry Pickeral. Teachers College Record Volume 111, Number 1, January 2009, pp. 180–213 Over the last few years while I was doing primarily training and consulting, I was often brought in to help schools, local governments, or other institutions who wanted to engage their young people in a better way. They were often frustrated, even desperate. A leader at some level was ready for change.
But, almost inevitably, the “presenting problem,” or the presumed solution I was there to provide, was based on:
In other words, the adults were often looking either to do what they were already doing, perhaps just a little better, or, more cynically, keep doing exactly what they were already doing but have the young people receive it better. I was interested in neither of these. What I was interested in, and still am, is: what do we really want for our young people? And, who can lead us there? Forget what we know, or think we know, about education, school, leadership, content, teen behavior, community, family, and so forth. What does success look like for a young person? If we start with this picture in mind, we all have the opportunity to step back and assess whether the strategies we are employing are going to get us to that vision. So, now, as I have just begun exploring the landscape of education technology, I am struck by how similar some of the assumptions, questions, and challenges are. Just as any ideas or strategies I could offer as a consultant were only as good as their implementation and ownership by the staff I worked with, so the potential impact of technology is only as good as its implementation and ownership by school staff. So, when we look at the multitude of education technology success stories circulating in the blogosphere, we need to remember to look not merely at the technology but the leadership that implemented and the conditions that facilitated it. That being said, the ed tech field still feels largely dominated by technologies that don’t actually require changing conditions or even that much leadership (or at least not transformational leadership). Instead, many are technologies that offer incremental change or, at worst, facilitate business-as-usual. For example, we are still implementing elaborate tools for content delivery at a time when content can be Googled and the skills of sorting, editing, and making meaning are most critical. We are building platforms to manage a traditional classroom model that keeps the adult as the sole point person, leader, and expert in the class when students’ lives (and the economy) are increasingly driven by models of open sourcing, crowd sourcing, content creation, online collaboration, individual choice, voice, customization, and so on. We are investing in large data and indicator systems that increase our ability to talk ABOUT students and identify their problems from a spreadsheet, when talking WITH students, engaging them, and knowing them personally is at more of a premium than ever. This is not an indictment of these technologies, just an observation given my personal motivation for reform. And, there is clearly much to celebrate in the current trials and future possibilities of education technology. But, even in the hands of great leadership, a tool designed for the status quo will likely deliver just that. ![]() Perhaps without even knowing it, this seems to be the riddle many of our communities and schools are writing for our young people. Just how many communication streams, technologies, websites, platforms, etc. can we ask our youth to check on a daily basis just to know what’s what? (To be clear, part of what is driving this is the rise of social media and the death of email use by young people, even as it remains the communications staple for much of the adult world. Only 6% of students check email daily and 39% never check it at all.) One student I talked with recently actually added up his logins for me: he had 8 just to manage his school, social, and extracurricular activities. He told me he checked two daily and 3-5 on a weekly basis. Two of them were his chosen social media channels; one was an email account (used only by his school), and one was a class-specific platform. Another login specifically to check his grades was also in circulation. The rest were largely ignored to the point where he laughed about how many times he had had to reset has passwords because he so rarely logged in. During our beta period, we worked with two-dozen local high school students as school ambassadors to help us listen, learn, and improve Zeumo for education. They helped us connect with teachers and other students to better understand what technologies were being used and what was actually working or not based on their experience. What we found were two primary sets of technology systems:
Regarding the institution-serving technologies, students have often heard of but have little-to-no engagement with them. (Teachers all know about them.) SMS’s, LMS’s, ISS’s simply aren’t built for students (and most teachers say not for them either!). Even those that might claim a student interface or “portal” clearly ignore the user experience, or just really don’t understand youth. (For the record, even the best student isn’t going to log in and navigate 6 clicks only to land on what is essentially a spreadsheet more than once.) For the classroom, there are actually some really interesting products out there. But, if we choose to consider the student, I believe classroom management technologies suffer from two main problems:
Please ignore the finer points of my math here and follow my logic: A student spends 20% of his waking hours in school and has roughly five academic courses core to his education. So, each class makes up roughly 4% of the student’s time (to make for easy math, this is being extraordinarily generous, and assumes a student is focused solely on his core academics during that 20% of school time). So, what login do you use, or are you at least asked or “required” to use, on a daily basis that is solely relevant to less than 4% of your life? What if you had to keep a different phone or a different calendar for each individual client you had, or an entirely different email account for each person who supervised you, or who you supervised? What if your organization had a different website for each product you offer even when the products serve the same customer base? (If you do, we may have just identified a problem.) And yet, this is the kind of technology noise we are inadvertently creating for students. What if we could provide a single login and password where a student could safely aggregate multiple communications channels from their school and community (and not have to be connected with “old people” in their social media space)? What if schools could communicate with students on a platform they actually want to use (i.e. not PA systems or emails)? What if community organizations didn’t have to compete with Twitter and Facebook noise hoping their youth see important posts? The Gallup Student Poll shows that only 44% of high school students are engaged, or you might say “logged in” to school. So I wonder: How much more would a student log in, if a student had just one login? ![]() I have spent the last few weeks watching my daughter begin the process of walking, and it has been truly one of the most profound experiences of my life. It’s thrilling. It’s emotional. And, it has given me pause to reflect on why. In her efforts, I see something elemental, but that has nothing to do with the physical act of walking. I see something that is at the essence of her being and yet, as an act, does little to define her. I see a process unfold that is often considered a skill, but is better understood and encouraged as an awakening. My daughter is learning. Her learning is of her. It is within her. And so with her actions, she enlightens me about the critical elements of learning, and in as much, the critical elements of teaching: Curiosity (Internal motivation) - At some point, while sitting on the carpet in our living room, my daughter looks up. She looks up to where my wife and I are sitting, where we put our iPad and the remote control, and yes, where we also put our dinner most nights. She can’t see where all this is, but she knows it’s up there. And, then one day, she just reaches up. New Perspectives - She puts her hands on our coffee table and squirms her body vertical, her muscles unsure of their new relation to gravity. She stands, wobbly, looking around. It is clear in her eyes, she is seeing a whole new world – a world from roughly two feet high that shows her things she has never seen before (without our help), and changes her perspective on the things she has. External Incentives - What is this new world? What is that on the couch? Look at those colors on the pillows! The remote control is fascinating. How can she get it? She wants and needs to explore these objects. She reaches, but her arms are too short. We urge her on with positive messages (and move everything on our coffee table to one side). Struggle - But, it is all still there and it still tempts her. And yet, she stands; her legs beginning to shake in fatigue as she knows neither how to move toward the objects nor how to get back to the safety of the floor. She is stuck. Then one day… the right heel comes off the ground…and then back down. The right knee comes up…but the left one shakes. She cries a moment, unsure. And, suddenly she takes a side step and her hands instinctively shift position to support her along the tabletop. Reflection - “Hmmm…what just happened? I just moved from there to here. Um…I can do this! That thing I just did may get me over there to all the stuff I want to explore.” Within a couple of days, she masters moving from surface to surface to get around the living room. My wife and I have moved everything to higher ground (and also begin noticing every potential danger in the room). Experimentation - After a week or so of pulling up and side stepping around the room, one day she stands, right in the middle of the room. She just stands, holding onto nothing. She looks around. My wife and I hold our breaths. She drops and crawls where she needs to go. But, she keeps doing this again and again as if knowing there is something to it, a new opportunity there, but not sure what it is. Then she stands…a half-step…drop…crawl… Courage and Resilience - So, one day, one of us holds a favorite toy or book out a few feet from her, and she haltingly and hesitantly starts to wobble forward. One step…and down. She gets back up. One…two…three steps…and down. She gets back up. One…two…three…four steps…and down. And today, she continues her process with modest daily improvements but with a confidence that is beginning to surge. The fear and uncertainty that have flooded her countenance are beginning to shift to a look of joy and pride in her efforts and our reinforcement. And, with every new step, her curiosity is again piqued, her perspective expanded and her learning process gathers inertia. If we want students to participate, we need to provide opportunities for them to participate.
If we want student voice, we need to create avenues to hear and capture it meaningfully. If we want students to be leaders, we need to be willing to step back and let them lead. Every day, adults use terms like voice, leadership, and engagement, and we design opportunities and programs based on them – but typically based on an indecipherable mash-up of what are unique and distinct concepts. Several years back, seeking clarity, I sat down in an attempt to organize and articulate some of these terms more fully. I ended up writing the Continuum of Youth Involvement. I wanted to help adults get on the same page about what we really want, what we are really willing to give up, and what we can gain when it comes to the meaningful involvement of our students/youth. After all, if we don’t know what we want from the start then we will continue to build programs and opportunities that don’t live up to our ill-defined aspirations (or perhaps surpass them in ways we are unprepared to see). If we don’t know what we are willing to give up as adults (power) then we will inevitably over-promise and under-deliver for the student in regard to their power. If we try to collaborate with youth and with other partners without clarifying our expectations, we will end up with little to show for our efforts. For example, I have seen countless schools, community groups, and citywide youth collaboratives who all said they were interested in “student voice”. So, they work for days or weeks or even months together around this idea only to find out that one person, or an entire group, just meant that they wanted to survey youth, another wanted focus groups and a youth on the “youth voice” committee, and yet another wanted students to have an ongoing and unfettered say on important issues in the school and community. After all that time and work, they realized they were never even close to being on the same page. Now what? Days, weeks, and months of work go down the tubes. Adults are frustrated. Youth are confused. Energy and resources are wasted. The efforts of the group often get documented in a wholly un-actionable set of ideas, plans, and programs and most everyone returns to business as usual. Worse yet, adults are less likely to invest in youth voice again (even through a better process) and students are less likely to trust adults when they hear that term. So, let’s commit to saying what we really want and are prepared to work for first. Let’s be honest about where we are and where we want to be along the Continuum of Youth Involvement. If we don’t have many students participating, let’s start there and not talk about engagement yet. If we aren’t sure how to develop meaningful leadership opportunities, let’s start by listening to students and get their “voice” on what is important to them. We can co-create leadership from there. If engagement feels too abstract, let’s work with students to facilitate real leadership, which done well, will spur deeper engagement. Before we can do what we say, we need to know what we are saying. Young people say it best. Forget the politics; let’s talk experience. Forget feelings; tell it like it is. The title is a quote from a college student panelist at a past America’s Promise Grad Nation Summit.
Since hearing this, my mind has gone a hundred different directions thinking about why and how and where this plays out for a young man like this. He had been practically defaulted by his community into gang membership at age 12 and his unnamable, burning anger as a child for his life circumstances left him restless, fearful, combative, and often in school suspension (and yet making straight A’s). Who was fake? What was fake? What does fake even mean to a student in these circumstances? Why was a 12 year old worried about his own survival? At the end of the day, maybe the specific answers don’t matter that much. In fact, determining the specific answers for this young man would probably only do just that – give the answers specific to him. But, here’s what we need to acknowledge: Too many adults in his school and community were “fakes”. And, this means there are likely hundreds of thousands of other youth out there who feel the same way, even if for varying reasons. But expounding on the non-virtues that create a fake is a pretty useless effort. So, alternatively, how can we be real? After all, it’s a matter of survival! To be real, we have to be willing to be abstract. We have to own and work toward something we cannot calculate or put in a chart or checklist somewhere and say: “hey, we did it!” And yet, we all know “real” when we experience it. Being real isn’t an action, or even something you show. Realness is a mutual feeling, a oneness between people. It is the medium of a genuine relationship. It requires knowledge of the other and values his unique experiences. It shares power. It suspends judgment for understanding. It means getting dirty. Sharing pain. Sharing success. Being uncomfortable. It is presence. It is trust. It is humility. Being real means seeing and believing and living such that my destiny and your destiny are inextricably linked. In the words of Dr. King: “I cannot be what I ought to be until your are what you ought to be, and you cannot be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.” Now, that’s real! And, the more we talk about young people as test scores, budget items, graduation statistics, or care for them only based on their buying power, we move from mutual destiny to otherness and individual outcome. We disentangle ourselves and relinquish that which makes us “us” – and something more than merely you and I. We make ourselves and others finite variables in an educational and economic discourse that we pretend we have little control over, and yet create and recreate every day. Young people know this and feel this, and it feels fake. Thankfully, they will call it what it is! Now, we should listen and work with them to get real. “In a real sense all life is inter-related…We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied to a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. Strangely enough, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be…this is the way that the world was made…I didn’t make it that way, but this is the inter-related structure of reality.” - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. If I had to guess, school played a central organizing role in probably 90% of my world when I was a teen. A few family things that weren’t around school, summer baseball (non-school), and maybe a couple of other small things rounded out the other 10%.
School was:
These things made school “sticky”, a place I wanted to be for a variety of reasons even when academics weren’t always one of them. Because of this, there was an opportunity cost for missing school (including, by the way, peace at home if I made poor choices). But, the student cost calculus has flipped today. For this generation of students, 90% of their world is on, or directly accessible through, their phone or tablet or laptop, all of which go wherever they go. So, when they check their devices at the school door, when they can’t access their social networks, when they can’t just immediately Google anything they want to know, they experience a loss. In other words, this generation of students experiences an unprecedented opportunity cost of going to school. (All I left behind was a television and a Nintendo. And, candidly, Days of Our Lives, Super Mario Brothers, and Techmo Bowl weren’t too much to sacrifice!) While a wholesale sellout to technology is not the answer for schools, it is, in fact, our competition for student bandwidth. And, while blended learning and BYOD (bring your own device) strategies are key to improving the educational delivery system, they do not focus on the development of the whole student or the school as community. As we push for ed reform and build new technologies to support it, we must remember that schools, when most successful, are more than just educational delivery systems. They must offer a broader value proposition for students, today more than ever. If we are going to truly transform education, we must reduce the opportunity cost of going to school. |
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