Walkthroughs -- For Principals [html]The new blog Swift & Changeable notes that they're doing "SchoolStat" -- the education version of the New York City police department sessions where supervisors are called in to give account for what's going on in their areas -- in Patterson New Jersey. (SchoolStat In Paterson: Hurricane? Or Blowin' in the Wind?) As many of you know, they're doing this for Chicago high schools, too. I hear it's brutal -- but no word yet on whether it's effective. Anyone been in one of the hourlong high school meetings, or heard what happens or if they change anything? [/html]
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Mon Dec 3, 2007 at 4:44 PM
Walkthroughs -- For Principals
It is a joke. The purpose of COMSTAT (crime fighting in NYC) was to have supervisors look at data on a regular basis with their direct reports, report strategies for addressing problems, and increase realtime accountability for results. It was not a one shot event by people without authority to do more than look officious, who in most cases know far less about the work the principals, who may have scripted responses to what to do about the data, but are entirely unlikely to come back this year, let alone in a week, or a month, or even quarterly.
I have yet to talk to a principal who says it adds any value at all. I have spoken to many who indicate it is meaningless. The amps schools and the new schools wonder whether the district is two steps away from making them do all the things they told them they were emancipated from. The rest of us think it is just another drip of dysfunction coming from leaking faucet at clark street.
Stop wasting our time. We have work to do.
I have yet to talk to a principal who says it adds any value at all. I have spoken to many who indicate it is meaningless. The amps schools and the new schools wonder whether the district is two steps away from making them do all the things they told them they were emancipated from. The rest of us think it is just another drip of dysfunction coming from leaking faucet at clark street.
Stop wasting our time. We have work to do.
Mon Dec 3, 2007 at 10:04 PM
Walkthroughs -- For Principals
We had one of these walkthroughs at my school last week. I wasn't in on it, but at the next department meeting, the principal and department chair were there, properly freaked out, talking about needing data and pre- and post-assessments and whatnot. After about 15 minutes of hearing their panic, I realized that we'd probably need some sort of multiple choice test every single day of the school year to get the data they want. So I got up and left.
Mon Dec 3, 2007 at 10:09 PM
Walkthroughs -- For Principals
this version is a downtown thing, where the principal goes downtown and is quizzed by central folks for an hour -- they're apparently doing them for every high school. i don't think there's anything wrong with accountability, especially if principals don't know why they're doing things or are resting on their laurels. but if it's a one-off thing with no followup from the AIO or whomever, then it's just an exercise. which it is, i don't know.
Tue Dec 4, 2007 at 4:55 AM
Walkthroughs -- For Principals
As the history of this stuff shows, it's a Power Point Pornographers dream. It's designed to allow ignoramouses who spent their younger lives with Mario and Sim City to lord over the people "in the trenches." Con men and women and frauds will do really well in this era, and with this goofiness.
The epitome of the program came when New York's Rudy Guilliani put Bernie Kerick -- a complete fraud, but slavishly loyal to his superiors and a crazed bully to underlings -- in charge of the New York City police department. Kernick was the only guy in history who didn't beat up the person who called his Mama a Whore. Why? -- because Kerick did it himself in a "memoir" and how can a tough guy beat himself to death for slandering his own mother in pursuit of career gains? Only Rudy Guilliani (or maybe Richie Daley) could fall in love with a guy like that, and only George W. Bush could almost make a Brenie Kerick the first head of Homeland Security.
But back to Chicago: let's not forget it was Guilliani and Kerick who started this nonsense to cook the books, and Guilliani who's still quoting phony "data" to hype himself.
Probably the worst example of what happens when you turn leadership over to guys like this (it's generally more a testosterone thing than many would care to admit, although some females get the same infection, as "New Schools" shows in Chicago) is that you put your "Command Center" next to the World Trade Center and watch it explode when terrorists attack. After all, if you've surrounded yourslef with loyal courtesans, that's the kind of advice you'll get. Whores will always tell you (a) you're beautiful and (b) you're right.
The worst officials were promoted (Kerick knew to surround himself with Kerick and Guilliani clones) as a result of the system. Those with experience in the complex dialectics of reality and street savvy were always on the defensive because, supposedly, the "data" told the real story.
New York's police are still recovering. So will teachers and principals in cities (like Patterson New Jersey, and now Chicago) where this silliness becomes the norm.
If you think the world can be reduced to Power Point, you'll love this program. It's for people who don't know the difference between masturbation and making love. Sim Reality all the way.
If reality has a place in your life, let's talk.
Something as stupid as this program can't be satirized (although I'll be working on that, too). Descriptions will leave most people laughing in the aisles as the contrast between reality and the central and area office bullying will be all that is needed.
So here's the offer: I'll publish all the descriptions, with photographs.
My favorite beats now are the Power Point crazies. Bug eyed behind their raptures. Hyped up on their Starbucks and their visionary visionariness, they have been running amuck over real teachers and serious principals for a decade now. Isn't it time to share their stories -- and the pictures of them bug-eyed with Data Driven Passion?
Stay tuned. Let's just hope we can tell this story in pictures as well as words. As they said in the Big Lebowski, the plot of these porneys is "ludicrous."
The epitome of the program came when New York's Rudy Guilliani put Bernie Kerick -- a complete fraud, but slavishly loyal to his superiors and a crazed bully to underlings -- in charge of the New York City police department. Kernick was the only guy in history who didn't beat up the person who called his Mama a Whore. Why? -- because Kerick did it himself in a "memoir" and how can a tough guy beat himself to death for slandering his own mother in pursuit of career gains? Only Rudy Guilliani (or maybe Richie Daley) could fall in love with a guy like that, and only George W. Bush could almost make a Brenie Kerick the first head of Homeland Security.
But back to Chicago: let's not forget it was Guilliani and Kerick who started this nonsense to cook the books, and Guilliani who's still quoting phony "data" to hype himself.
Probably the worst example of what happens when you turn leadership over to guys like this (it's generally more a testosterone thing than many would care to admit, although some females get the same infection, as "New Schools" shows in Chicago) is that you put your "Command Center" next to the World Trade Center and watch it explode when terrorists attack. After all, if you've surrounded yourslef with loyal courtesans, that's the kind of advice you'll get. Whores will always tell you (a) you're beautiful and (b) you're right.
The worst officials were promoted (Kerick knew to surround himself with Kerick and Guilliani clones) as a result of the system. Those with experience in the complex dialectics of reality and street savvy were always on the defensive because, supposedly, the "data" told the real story.
New York's police are still recovering. So will teachers and principals in cities (like Patterson New Jersey, and now Chicago) where this silliness becomes the norm.
If you think the world can be reduced to Power Point, you'll love this program. It's for people who don't know the difference between masturbation and making love. Sim Reality all the way.
If reality has a place in your life, let's talk.
Something as stupid as this program can't be satirized (although I'll be working on that, too). Descriptions will leave most people laughing in the aisles as the contrast between reality and the central and area office bullying will be all that is needed.
So here's the offer: I'll publish all the descriptions, with photographs.
My favorite beats now are the Power Point crazies. Bug eyed behind their raptures. Hyped up on their Starbucks and their visionary visionariness, they have been running amuck over real teachers and serious principals for a decade now. Isn't it time to share their stories -- and the pictures of them bug-eyed with Data Driven Passion?
Stay tuned. Let's just hope we can tell this story in pictures as well as words. As they said in the Big Lebowski, the plot of these porneys is "ludicrous."
Tue Dec 4, 2007 at 8:58 AM
Walkthroughs -- For Principals
Just for the record, charter schools have to go through this process as well.
Here's my problem with George and all of the naysayers, as much as I loathe power point (not just the presentations, but the software itself) all data is not bad. The data the media lionizes every year, the % of students meeting or exceeding state standards at a particular school in a particular grade in a particular subject. That data is bad and useless.
However, if we start to emphasize data that examines cohort growth from year to year, which would include pre/post tests or quarterly interim assessments, can be a very useful thing. When we take the high stakes aspect out of it and give teachers the tools (and the time)to analyze the data, I really don't think it is a bad thing.
If you are a principal and you have quarterly data points to look at (in addition to regular classroom visits) and you see that teacher A's students have grown twice as fast in skill y as teacher B's, but teacher B's students did better in skill X students you can ask those two teachers to work together.
If you have a responsible school district, they could do the same thing with school level data, asking schools to work together to share their various areas of strength.
Data, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. Using data as one factor in making an important decision is also not a bad thing. It is when we over-value the data and make it almost god-like in its power that we have problems. We're quickly moving toward that model, but that doesn't mean that it is not too late to pull back.
The use of data in education is here to stay, and if you're willing to join the discussion on how it is used you might be able to help change things for the better.
Here's my problem with George and all of the naysayers, as much as I loathe power point (not just the presentations, but the software itself) all data is not bad. The data the media lionizes every year, the % of students meeting or exceeding state standards at a particular school in a particular grade in a particular subject. That data is bad and useless.
However, if we start to emphasize data that examines cohort growth from year to year, which would include pre/post tests or quarterly interim assessments, can be a very useful thing. When we take the high stakes aspect out of it and give teachers the tools (and the time)to analyze the data, I really don't think it is a bad thing.
If you are a principal and you have quarterly data points to look at (in addition to regular classroom visits) and you see that teacher A's students have grown twice as fast in skill y as teacher B's, but teacher B's students did better in skill X students you can ask those two teachers to work together.
If you have a responsible school district, they could do the same thing with school level data, asking schools to work together to share their various areas of strength.
Data, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. Using data as one factor in making an important decision is also not a bad thing. It is when we over-value the data and make it almost god-like in its power that we have problems. We're quickly moving toward that model, but that doesn't mean that it is not too late to pull back.
The use of data in education is here to stay, and if you're willing to join the discussion on how it is used you might be able to help change things for the better.
Tue Dec 4, 2007 at 10:13 AM
Walkthroughs -- For Principals
My comstat meeting was largely a session of rhetorical questioning and insinuation, and who knows if they'll ever follow this up with feedback or assistance. But I agree with Charile... looking at actual cohort data is something I have yet to see CPS doing well, and it's important to start distinguishing not just random PSAE meets/exceeds numbers from year to year with totally different students based on work keys exams that are not linked to any real measure of college readiness, but how many students start in ninth grade, where they go when they leave, who enters and when, and what is happening in the apples to apples comparison of their test scores and grades over their time at the schools.
Tue Dec 4, 2007 at 12:58 PM
Walkthroughs -- For Principals
does anyone have the cohort data that would be useful, or is it all year to year stuff still?
apparently NYC has cohort data -- and does formative assessment 5x a year for reading AND math -- but i've never heard of it being available in CPS.
anyone know? also, are they almost done with the comstat meetings, or just about halfway done?
apparently NYC has cohort data -- and does formative assessment 5x a year for reading AND math -- but i've never heard of it being available in CPS.
anyone know? also, are they almost done with the comstat meetings, or just about halfway done?
Tue Dec 4, 2007 at 1:14 PM
Walkthroughs -- For Principals
>>>
The use of data in education is here to stay, and if you're willing to join the discussion on how it is used you might be able to help change things for the better.
>>>
I'm sorry, but I just couldn't disagree more with this. In the educational field, quantifying teachers and students as basic numbers is a horrible trend we've fallen into. Use of data is one thing, but manipulation of data is a much more realistic way to express that sentiment. None of us should accept it as 'here to stay'. A good example of this is racism -- we can't just have a society with citizens, we have to continue categorizing them into segments. Tweaking test scores, demographics, social classes, whatever is great for a mindless bureaucrat with a spreadsheet, but it ignores the fact that people are a much more fluid and organic than numbers.
The use of data in education is here to stay, and if you're willing to join the discussion on how it is used you might be able to help change things for the better.
>>>
I'm sorry, but I just couldn't disagree more with this. In the educational field, quantifying teachers and students as basic numbers is a horrible trend we've fallen into. Use of data is one thing, but manipulation of data is a much more realistic way to express that sentiment. None of us should accept it as 'here to stay'. A good example of this is racism -- we can't just have a society with citizens, we have to continue categorizing them into segments. Tweaking test scores, demographics, social classes, whatever is great for a mindless bureaucrat with a spreadsheet, but it ignores the fact that people are a much more fluid and organic than numbers.
Tue Dec 4, 2007 at 2:30 PM
Walkthroughs -- For Principals
What exactly does data do? I would say that it makes up for oversights and alerts us to trends or exceptions that we might not otherwise be aware of. But in my education and busisness experience I have rarely seen data used well. It gets away from us.
Education--and this is very important if we are talking about urban schools--depends upon individual teachers (not to mention other adults) trying to find the unique key to the unique motor of each young person. A school that is organized effectively around this purpose--with faculty team meetings about individual students, for example, rather than endless meetings about the data--is the most likely to succeed. Data can help to identify gaps and trends, but it can't be the measure of a school, a teacher or a young person.
Data tends to be used to destroy successful operations willi-nilli and to justify crackpot schemes which are more oriented toward improving the secondary data than improving the bottom line (or, in the case of education, helping young people to achieve self-direction and competence in their lives).
It's not realistic to say things like "if you're willing to join the discussion on how it is used you might be able to help change things for the better"; but until the point about the destructiveness of data becomes commonly accepted at all levels, there will be no such discussion.
In the context of public education, the forces aligned to promote the abuse of data are much stronger than that. The task of mastering data depends on having a conversation about the proper use of it that no one who matters is going to engage in. At least not until we get a President who says that data is destroying education--even though in some sense that isn't really true.
Translated into simple teacher-language, "The use of data in education is here to stay" amounts to saying that those who really want to succeed in educating actual human beings have to find subterfuges to protect schools and young people from the inevitable misapplication of data.
Education--and this is very important if we are talking about urban schools--depends upon individual teachers (not to mention other adults) trying to find the unique key to the unique motor of each young person. A school that is organized effectively around this purpose--with faculty team meetings about individual students, for example, rather than endless meetings about the data--is the most likely to succeed. Data can help to identify gaps and trends, but it can't be the measure of a school, a teacher or a young person.
Data tends to be used to destroy successful operations willi-nilli and to justify crackpot schemes which are more oriented toward improving the secondary data than improving the bottom line (or, in the case of education, helping young people to achieve self-direction and competence in their lives).
It's not realistic to say things like "if you're willing to join the discussion on how it is used you might be able to help change things for the better"; but until the point about the destructiveness of data becomes commonly accepted at all levels, there will be no such discussion.
In the context of public education, the forces aligned to promote the abuse of data are much stronger than that. The task of mastering data depends on having a conversation about the proper use of it that no one who matters is going to engage in. At least not until we get a President who says that data is destroying education--even though in some sense that isn't really true.
Translated into simple teacher-language, "The use of data in education is here to stay" amounts to saying that those who really want to succeed in educating actual human beings have to find subterfuges to protect schools and young people from the inevitable misapplication of data.
Tue Dec 4, 2007 at 10:25 PM
Walkthroughs -- For Principals
evil data used to mechanize and squash efforts to teach real human beings. That's like saying doctors should look more at the relationships they build with their patients who are all unique individuals with personal needs rather than look at research on what cures illness and promotes health. If we had 1 in 100 of our citizens being cured and living through cancer, would we be ok saying that the way to help the 99% who are dying is get to know them better as people and ignore any methods used to look at and collect info on what's working? But UofC tells us that 1 of 100 CPS students who start HS in chicago graduates college. darn numbers and data.
we have a city full high schools no one wants to send their kids to unless they are part of the highly selective 8, we're losing hundreds of kids between 9th and 12th grades nearly every other school, terrible graduation and college success rates, and the solution is to disavow numbers. Let's stop wasting time on measuring learning, which will just hurt our poor teachers' feelings, and really get to know our young individuals.
we have a city full high schools no one wants to send their kids to unless they are part of the highly selective 8, we're losing hundreds of kids between 9th and 12th grades nearly every other school, terrible graduation and college success rates, and the solution is to disavow numbers. Let's stop wasting time on measuring learning, which will just hurt our poor teachers' feelings, and really get to know our young individuals.
Tue Dec 4, 2007 at 10:50 PM
Walkthroughs -- For Principals
"What exactly does data do?..."
Or do data do? (Depending upon your style sheet and how tired you be).
In addition to the failure of any system to deal seriously with the only couple of kinds of "data" that matter daily to classroom teachers (cohort data and perhaps diagnostic information -- which should be broader than "data" by the way), what matters most is the dominant narrative, the overarching algorhythm within which all the rest of the "data" are situated, framed, and analyzed.
The rest is simply an opportunity for ignorant bullying.
Nearly 40 years ago I was taught (by Annie Stein) to analyze data on reading for large urban school districts. She argued that any data "set" that produced a bi-modal curve showed that you were really confronting two systems, not one. She had done that analysis for New York (in the Fleishman Report) and had actually begun it in Gary, Indiana way back during the 1950s, at the dawn of the post Brown era.
It was hard work, and took an entire summer. Sure enough, Chicago yielded the same bi-modal curve when I first graphed all the data (before Lutus 1, 2, 3 and Excel) in the mid-1970s.
And sure enough, leering out from underneath the data woodpile, like the rat it was, was massive racial segregation. The "failing" hump on the curve was Chicago's segregated black system. The "passing" hump was the "other" (mostly in those days, white).
The only thing that's changed in the past 30 years is that now we've got a tri-modal "system." If we weren't so mindlessly simplistic about data, we'd start (and possibly end) by recognizing the challenges that triple hump indicates. Instead, the people who lead this system today are as mindless in their oversimplified data viewpoints as the suicidal "day traders" who talked about things like "buying on the dip" eight years ago as their bubbles and lives were bursting.
What do Chicago's systems look like today? Way out there on the side of "success" are the small group of completely selective (either by SES or picking) magnet, gifted and specialized schools. They constitute (as the most recent data crazed U.S. News report again shows) one of the "best" school systems for everyone in it in the USA. There are some high schools in the USA as good as Whitney Young or Northside, but none better on the aggregate of all the possible "datas" (including factors like racial and economic diversity, where even a place like Northside beats Stevenson and New Trier as easily as Morgan Park defeated Glenbard West last month in football).
The muddling middle is still holding up, but it's crumbling at the edges, especially by high school. The general high schools are being sabotaged over time, and scapegoated. Communities are being destroyed in the process, and nobody with power is calling a stop to the mindlessness behind it. It's like the frenzy during the run up of ENRON, JDS Uniphase, or Edison Schools Inc (when it was publicly traded on the NASDAQ). But then anyone who was trained in financial manipulations during the dot con years would probably see the world that simplistically.
But back to the current Chicago triage.
At the "bottom" are the sad schools -- more than a hundred -- that fill the "dropout factory" reports. Many people here work in them. The easiest way to identify them is to ask their teachers to list, counting backwards, their "Dead Kid" memories. That's what really separates the "urban" teacher from the rest. A Pineda might be lost every now and then at a place like Whitney Young, but by 12th grade every kid at the "bottom" (and in the "bottom" schools) has been to more funerals than graduation parties.
And all in the same city.
One of the most noisome traits of the recent decade of corporate "school reform" has been the victory of that mindless aggregation of data, insisting that we have one system. That then is translated into the tyranny of the Power Point junkies, usually people who have never walked the walk but who've been trained to yammer the yammer.
Until Chicago is freed to view the systems within the "system" of public education as it has really been morphed over the past two decades, all of that prattle about "data driven management" will be as ignorant as people who think segregation is no longer a problem, or that poverty doesn't matter (especially where it's the majority condition of children) in the achievement of schools.
Or do data do? (Depending upon your style sheet and how tired you be).
In addition to the failure of any system to deal seriously with the only couple of kinds of "data" that matter daily to classroom teachers (cohort data and perhaps diagnostic information -- which should be broader than "data" by the way), what matters most is the dominant narrative, the overarching algorhythm within which all the rest of the "data" are situated, framed, and analyzed.
The rest is simply an opportunity for ignorant bullying.
Nearly 40 years ago I was taught (by Annie Stein) to analyze data on reading for large urban school districts. She argued that any data "set" that produced a bi-modal curve showed that you were really confronting two systems, not one. She had done that analysis for New York (in the Fleishman Report) and had actually begun it in Gary, Indiana way back during the 1950s, at the dawn of the post Brown era.
It was hard work, and took an entire summer. Sure enough, Chicago yielded the same bi-modal curve when I first graphed all the data (before Lutus 1, 2, 3 and Excel) in the mid-1970s.
And sure enough, leering out from underneath the data woodpile, like the rat it was, was massive racial segregation. The "failing" hump on the curve was Chicago's segregated black system. The "passing" hump was the "other" (mostly in those days, white).
The only thing that's changed in the past 30 years is that now we've got a tri-modal "system." If we weren't so mindlessly simplistic about data, we'd start (and possibly end) by recognizing the challenges that triple hump indicates. Instead, the people who lead this system today are as mindless in their oversimplified data viewpoints as the suicidal "day traders" who talked about things like "buying on the dip" eight years ago as their bubbles and lives were bursting.
What do Chicago's systems look like today? Way out there on the side of "success" are the small group of completely selective (either by SES or picking) magnet, gifted and specialized schools. They constitute (as the most recent data crazed U.S. News report again shows) one of the "best" school systems for everyone in it in the USA. There are some high schools in the USA as good as Whitney Young or Northside, but none better on the aggregate of all the possible "datas" (including factors like racial and economic diversity, where even a place like Northside beats Stevenson and New Trier as easily as Morgan Park defeated Glenbard West last month in football).
The muddling middle is still holding up, but it's crumbling at the edges, especially by high school. The general high schools are being sabotaged over time, and scapegoated. Communities are being destroyed in the process, and nobody with power is calling a stop to the mindlessness behind it. It's like the frenzy during the run up of ENRON, JDS Uniphase, or Edison Schools Inc (when it was publicly traded on the NASDAQ). But then anyone who was trained in financial manipulations during the dot con years would probably see the world that simplistically.
But back to the current Chicago triage.
At the "bottom" are the sad schools -- more than a hundred -- that fill the "dropout factory" reports. Many people here work in them. The easiest way to identify them is to ask their teachers to list, counting backwards, their "Dead Kid" memories. That's what really separates the "urban" teacher from the rest. A Pineda might be lost every now and then at a place like Whitney Young, but by 12th grade every kid at the "bottom" (and in the "bottom" schools) has been to more funerals than graduation parties.
And all in the same city.
One of the most noisome traits of the recent decade of corporate "school reform" has been the victory of that mindless aggregation of data, insisting that we have one system. That then is translated into the tyranny of the Power Point junkies, usually people who have never walked the walk but who've been trained to yammer the yammer.
Until Chicago is freed to view the systems within the "system" of public education as it has really been morphed over the past two decades, all of that prattle about "data driven management" will be as ignorant as people who think segregation is no longer a problem, or that poverty doesn't matter (especially where it's the majority condition of children) in the achievement of schools.
Wed Dec 5, 2007 at 9:26 AM
Walkthroughs -- For Principals
I want to clarify my support of data earlier in this thread. First of all, and most of importantly, I do not think data should be the end all be all of education or should be the only factor used in making important decisions about students/schools/districts/states. However, data should be a factor in those discussions. I honestly think that if you are interested in being the best teacher in this day and age, you are first, going to do your very best to connect with each student on a personal level and build those relationships with your students, but then you are also use assessment data to measure the growth of your students and to track the development of students on particular skills.
The data is not going to be your only point of reference, but it should be used to either confirm or question the knowledge you gain from observing your students on a daily basis.
Principals should be using this data in the same way as an additional reference point as they are assessing the performance of their students. The same thing holds true at every level.
Your answer to this argument cannot simply be "data is evil, down with data." Welcome to information age, folks. I'm not saying that data is used well in this city or in very many places at all in education right now, but that doesn't mean that at a classroom level teachers can't find productive uses for it that help improve the performance of their students.
The data is not going to be your only point of reference, but it should be used to either confirm or question the knowledge you gain from observing your students on a daily basis.
Principals should be using this data in the same way as an additional reference point as they are assessing the performance of their students. The same thing holds true at every level.
Your answer to this argument cannot simply be "data is evil, down with data." Welcome to information age, folks. I'm not saying that data is used well in this city or in very many places at all in education right now, but that doesn't mean that at a classroom level teachers can't find productive uses for it that help improve the performance of their students.
Wed Dec 12, 2007 at 8:30 AM
Walkthroughs -- For Principals
there's a new story about the comstat meetings at wbez today, which i've posted about here:
http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/RUSSO/index.php/entry/386
essentially, clarice berry says she's against them and principal nelson at senn says he was ok with it.
anyone else heard from their principal about what might change as a result?
http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/RUSSO/index.php/entry/386
essentially, clarice berry says she's against them and principal nelson at senn says he was ok with it.
anyone else heard from their principal about what might change as a result?
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