[Today’s special guest is Anthony Mullen, 2009 Teacher of the Year and awesome writer. Feel free to tell us what you think about his post in the comments below.]
The young man wearing blue jeans and a red and white polo shirt is anxious. He frequently looks at his watch, shaking his head while staring at the train tracks. He is restless and angry and impatient because the train is late again. He bends over and grabs a handful of gravel, throwing the shattered stone against a pair of cold steel rails. A few commuters standing on the train platform watch, quietly wondering why the young man is so upset. It is, after all, a bright and sunny afternoon. A solitary businessman wearing a Brooks Brothers suit is too busy texting to notice anything.
Damn. Why are fuckin’ trains always late? Why does it have to be late today?
The young man kicks an empty bottle of Diet Coke.
Why bother making plans when people just screw ‘em up?
In the distance two serpentine lights appear, silent and ominous, signaling the arrival of the 6:15 from Grand Central Station.
Finally. He peeks at his watch and feels a sigh of relief.
The young man smiles. It’s been a long time since he has smiled, but his nerves are calm now and he will not miss his appointment. Life is hectic enough, and missing scheduled appointments make him feel rushed and nervous.
The train’s engineer pushes the throttle forward and the massive juggernaut of steel and glass and people race toward the concrete platform.
The young man waits until he can see the flushed face of the engineer, and then he steps in front of the train.
The man in the Brooks Brothers suit stops texting. He will be late for work today.
The word data slides easily off the tongue but has no personality and sounds as dry as a funeral drum. School administrators try to grace the word by telling parents that “data-driven school districts” will radically change public education, hoping that a staccato of words and a flare of alliteration will impress a captive audience. Some disingenuous school officials assert that “data-driven” is an essential tool for effectively managing a business, so why not a school system?
But it’s all a ruse. The sum of all the rhetoric about the importance of designing data-driven school districts is a shell game, a slight of hand practiced by illusionists to distract trusting parents who believe school administrators know what is best for their children. Anything “data-driven” must be beneficial for schools, parents are told, because data is information, and information is necessary to make sound decisions about curriculum, instruction and learning. And since even the best used car salesperson can no longer sell the faux elixir of Common Core now that this failed one-size-fits-all education policy has been exposed, school administrators need a new mantra to mystify parents.
Data has an ugly side, a face that frequently emerges when it is misinterpreted or convoluted to justify a faulty assumption or bad decision. The countless financial manipulations practiced by Wall Street brokers and bankers have repeatedly proven that data can be exploited and cause financial ruin for millions of people. Data may be defined as a set of values of quantitative and qualitative variables, and business savors at the trough of data, but schools should be people-driven rather than data-driven institutions.
The young man who stepped in front of the train was a beautiful byte of data, but he was more than the sum of the quantitative information collected by a data-driven school district. His social and emotional data fills less space on his school district’s list of quantifiable student data than math and science scores, and that is the shame of the present state of American public education.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, Suicide is the SECOND leading cause of death for ages 10-24, and more teenagers and young adults die from suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke, pneumonia, influenza, and chronic lung disease … combined. Need quantitative data? Each day in our nation, there are an average of over 5,400 suicide attempts by young people grades 7-12, and four out of five teens who have attempted suicide give clear warning signs. Maybe its time to take off the blinders of a data-driven school district to see clearly that our students are suffering.
Data is not our generation’s penicillin. It is an ugly word used by school administrators, policy makers, and government officials to demean the greatest social institution ever designed by human hands – a public school. Data is being used to compare the United States with countries such as Finland because the Finns score higher on international math and science tests, but can someone – anyone – tell me what Finland produces with their wealth of science and math knowledge?
[crickets]The United States may score lower on international math and science tests, but somehow we instill creativity in our students and produce amazing technologies.
I taught and helped mentor the young man who stepped in front of the train. I helped him get a scholarship to a vocational school after he earned a high school diploma. He wanted to be an electrician, but I also knew about the many demons that tormented his gentle soul. He endured a miserable childhood, never knew his father, drank too much, and could not leash his black dog of depression. I tried to place him on a road that could lead him to a better place, believing that terra firma would make him feel a clearer path to success and salvation, but he could not see nor feel the ground beneath his feet. I failed.
I believe the vast majority of classroom teachers are not opposed to collecting data that may enhance instructional strategies or improve learning, but do object to a school system trying to emulate a business model designed to increase production and profits rather than enhance social and emotional growth. The social and emotional learning needs of children are too often omitted when describing the purpose of a “data-driven school district” and this is a flawed education philosophy.
The young man was a beautiful byte of data. Now he is a cold dead statistic.
I concur that Mr. Mullen is an awesome writer. I have been a follower of his work for quite some time.This is a very powerful piece. As always, he has penned a creatively written article complete with analysis and statistics that support a sound argument. But more than that, Mr. Mullen is a talented story teller, a talent he uses so well to underscore the danger of becoming preoccupied with policy at the expense of our children’s well-being. One does not “read” a story by Mr Mullen, but “feels” the story. He pours his heart and soul into every word. What makes him a poignant writer is much the same as what makes him a compassionate, dedicated teacher. How lucky his students are to have him.
Tony is spot on. It’s amazing and sobering to think about how many kids are falling through the cracks, whose needs are not being met as the “reformers” focus everyone’s attention on data driven goals and value-added models. People need to pause and remember that first and foremost, we teach kids (not subjects) and sometimes meeting their needs as a person is far more important than selecting and sorting them by their academic data.
I agree that this is an incredibly powerful piece of writing by Anthony Mullen, of equal or even greater power to his famous piece written while NTOY:
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teacher_of_the_year/2010/01/teachers_should_be_seen_and_no.html
I remember being shocked when the first Education Nation by NBC was organized and Anthony, then the immediate past NTOY, was not on the agenda (nor was the current NTOY).
Having dealt with students wrestling with suicide (fortunately none ever made a successful attempt) this strike home on a number of levels.
I would like to give this broader visibility. I would like permission to quote more than the normal three paragraphs to try to draw traffic to this piece.
Let me know.
Author
Perfect question to ask Tony. Let me point him to you.
Hi Ken,
Thank you for your gracious comment. You certainly have my permission to use my piece in any format or dialogue. We live in interesting times, do we not? All I hear from too many administrators and policy makers is the worn-out phrase “We are a data-driven school district.” In retrospect, however, I do feel relieved not hearing the tired metaphor that I must “think outside the box.” Data is important but it should not usurp a philosophy that we should be “student-driven” not “data-driven” institutions. Your kindness shines brightly.
Tony,
Too often teachers meet the faces of the “cold dead statistic” and sadly realize that we were the last chance for a child’s salvation. We are in the people business, but unlike other entities, our “customers” cannot be academically successful unless we are cognizant of their social and emotional needs. A healthy mind does more to raise test scores than all the myriad instructional strategies promoted education “experts.”
We do not make sales nor advertise nor change the packaging to make the product seem more appealing to a consumer. What we do “do” in our business is develop a product that has unlimited creative potential, powerful problem solving capabilities, and commanding processing power. Our product is fully customizable, but it is also incredibly fragile, hungry, thirsty, tired, anxious, depressed, and sometimes these products break under the strain of daily life and lack of adult role models.
I know in my heart that most teachers understand the importance of data, but they also understand that one size does not fit all. Thank you for advocating for us and, most important, our students.
Thank you, Mike. A very astute observation. We are (were) in the people business.
poignant.
Hi Joanna,
Thank you for reading my reflection and your kind comment.
I put the phrase ‘data-driven school’ into the same trough of b.s. I do “21st century skills” and “critical thinking.”
Today I did not have our unit test, because after grading work over the weekend I’m seeing issues on which students still needed feedback. I let the ‘data’ I gathered ‘drive’ my instructional decisions. I need no PD or ‘program’ to do this.
Yes, our school uses data gathering tools, But the decision to use data in any fashion should be left to the school, not driven by the edu-political bureaucracy.
Recently I had a parent ask if I let students grade each others’ work “like we did in math class.”
“No, because I need to see what they’re doing. If you’re adding 6x to both sides vs. subtracting I need to SEE that and use that DATA to DRIVE what that student needs and what I must instruct.
Well-said. Did we ever not teach critical thinking? Or practice 21st century skills? It is insulting to be told to “initiate” such novel ideas. I am now told to guide “student-directed” learning rather than teach directly. It would be comical if not for the damage being done to children. Not to worry: the phrase “data-driven” will burnout in the usual 18 month lifespan and be replaced with another mantra to improve instruction. Be well, my friend.
You are not making a data driven decision. You are making a data informed decision. You consider the data, then decide what action to take. The problem with “data driven” is there is no judgment applied by the teacher, the actions are predetermined by a set of rubrics applied using the data to guide how. That ignores the reality of what the data means, which comes only from knowing the students.
Dear Ken,
As always, you know how to invert a phrase or policy and make it sensible. Bravo!
In my first life as a military systems development-acquisition officer, I had one of those seasoned engineers say, “A jet engine will always tell you what’s wrong; you have to know how to listen for it.”
My engineerd brain has always seen data as a window to the truth, not something you follow automatically without thought. Another reason when some edu-bureaucrat tries to push stuff on us, I must exert all my ‘home training’ not to tell that person “Shut the @#$ up ’cause you’re really shoveling some b.s.”
Yes! Some people are experts at the art of rhetoric without substance, parrots who echo what was recently learned at some “novel” workshop. You know the truth because you feel it. Period. And that makes you a beautiful person.
Thank you; I’ve had beautiful students.
Beauty attracts all that is beautiful.
Too many have lost sight of what matters in education. Tony’s article is a powerful indictment of that shift, which eliminates identities and reduces people to statistics. My hope for the future lies in those teachers who set aside test blanks and bubbles and look into the eyes and souls of those whom they teach. We have precious little time with our students to emphasize what is truly important in life, and I dare say it’s not a standardized test score.
Dear S Pelchat,
Your empathy and understanding of what truly matters to our students is testament to your beautiful soul. Thank you.
Thats really a great post I read after a long time, keep up the good work.
Hi Dominic. Thank you for your kind words.
What a great conversation. I was struck by the phrase data informed versus data driven decision making. The former sounds proactive, while the latter seems reactive. The former suggests that there is some opportunity for local,even possibly individual classroom, control whereas the latter does not.
Yes, it is sad that our students have so many challenges. I have taught students who are cutters, who burn themselves with hot match sticks, and students who are raising their younger siblings while their parents are trying to sleep off their previous night binge and so on. I wonder, with all of the requirements we have for our jobs, if sometimes, as teachers, we forget that for many kids we represent the only “stability” available for them.
Hi David,
Thank you for your astute observation that we teachers are too often the only “stability” and adult role model in the lives of our students. Make no mistake: the teaching professional is losing its humanity.
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