

School Districts Embrace Business Model of Data Collection - william_stranix
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/us/school-districts-embrace-business-model-of-data-collection.html

======
acjohnson55
This is a trend that's been around for some time. When I taught high school in
Baltimore City Public Schools in 2008, my experience with data-driven
education was decidedly negative. The mantra was basically the more data the
better, and we collected data for its own sake. Not a whole lot of thought
went into the validity of the data or its analysis. It added a tremendous
amount of overhead and already insanely stressful job.

That's not to say that data _couldn 't_ be really useful. It would be great to
basically get rid of age-based grade system and the track system (honors,
regular, remedial) and simply let children move along in each subject as they
demonstrate progress.

But, unfortunately, we're stuck educational policy culture constantly on the
search for silver-bullet solutions. "Data" is just the latest iteration of a
great idea, perverted by a need to shoehorn it into a system that refuses to
truly adapt.

~~~
IndianAstronaut
>Not a whole lot of thought went into the validity of the data or its
analysis.

They may not be able to analyze the data themselves, but there are third party
companies which have the expertise to make something of that data.

~~~
acjohnson55
But there's only so much you can do with crap data. In my experience, you
often have have consultants/experts who are divorced from the reality of
classroom teaching or teachers who are too embroiled in the day-to-day to
execute data-driven instruction effectively.

------
ericcumbee
"“She sees where her scores fall on all these charts compared to all these
other kids, and then she feels like she is behind or ahead or right in the
middle, so she feels like she’s just average rather than excellent at what she
does,” she said."

to me that feels like everything that is wrong with education right now.
Talking to friends that are educators. parents seem to want to be blissfully
ignorant of anything that says their child isn't a genius. Parents seem to
think that passing the mandated standardized test is a sign that their child
is ahead rather than what it really means that they might just barely have met
the min bar.

------
javajosh
Does anyone collect data on social rather than academic progress? That would
be fascinating to look at/build/understand.

~~~
thomaskcr
You could also get children to legitimately put a lot of effort into answering
something like "rank your top 10 friends in order" \- you could map how
networks evolve over time, probably all the way through middle school for
some.

