Monday, December 1, 2008

Data driven decisions.... well maybe

Here is a nice piece on the use and more likely misuse of data in educational decision making.
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/dec08/vol66/num04/Driven_Dumb_by_Data%2b.aspx

1 comment:

  1. This is simply junk - every teacher hears this at trainings, yet very little happens as a result. For one, look at the subject you are collecting data from - students. This is not an experiment in agricultural science. We are not comparing fertilizers, yet sometimes educators imagine patterns or connections where there are none to be made. We are even so bold as to compare students to their parents, yet once again the fallacy is we remember only the students which fit the pattern.

    The vast quantity of research that gets published cannot be described as very objective, nor close to what I would call meaningful data. Anecdotes are never data.

    What I'd like to see is how these con-artists are pairing 'similiar' schools to about the reform curriculum. This is the Age of Data in an Era of Ignorance and Greed.

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