Andrew (Andy) Hargreaves, Dennis Shirley - The Fourth Way_ The Inspiring Future for Educational Change-Corwin (2009)

30 The Fourth Way
In education today, data are collected on student and teacher performance,
school performance, the system’s performance on examination
results, standardized test scores, attendance and absenteeism rates, and
now also on a range of indicators of student well-being. Should we be all
that concerned?
•• More and more individual students have the right and the
responsibility to meet with their teacher, mentor, or progress
manager every few weeks to review their scores together and see
where more effort or intervention might be needed. Doesn’t this
finally give students an active voice in their own learning?
•• Schools can be clearer about where their problems are—a weak
department here, an underperforming group of boys in reading
there—so they can focus their interventions and assistance more
precisely. Doesn’t this give help to those who most need it, and stop
teachers from scattering their efforts to the winds?
•• Teachers can be recognized and rewarded for the difference they
make to the students they teach over the course of a school year,
in terms of measures of value-added achievement. Isn’t this more
objective, appropriate, and fair than paying people according to
their seniority or administrative responsibilities?
•• Higher- and lower-performing schools and teachers serving
similar kinds of students can be identified openly so schools can
be connected to peers who can help them and parents can become
better informed about what’s going on. Doesn’t this encourage and
support people to help them improve together?
•• Classroom pedagogy can be based on clear and objective evidence
of what works in relation to student achievement instead of on the
basis of instinct, ideology, intuition, or habit. If teachers want to be
treated as real professionals, shouldn’t they act more like doctors
and base their practice on hard evidence rather than on personal
preference or unexamined belief?
•• Professional learning communities of teachers and leaders can look
at performance data together to face up to their problems, find shared
solutions, and engage in invigorating professional conversations
about how to improve practice. Haven’t teachers complained for
years about getting too little praise and feedback, and about having
to work in lonely conditions of classroom isolation?
Few could deny the importance of data in the information age. In
physical examinations, financial forecasting, and air traffic control systems,
we can’t operate or even survive without data. In education, data can and