Paradigm Shift to Data-Driven Decision Making
Decision making based on intuition, tradition, or convenience
- Scattered staff development programs
- Budgetary decisions based on prior practice or priority programs
- Staff assignments based on interest and availability
- Reports to the community about school events
- Goal-setting by board members, administrators, or teachers based on votes, favorite initiatives, or fads
- Staff meetings that focus on operations and the dissemination of information
- Parent communication via twice-a-year conferences, open-houses and newsletters
- Grading systems based on each teacher’s criteria of completed work and participation
- Periodic administrative team meetings focused solely on operations
OR
DATA-DRIVEN DECISION MAKING
- Focused staff development programs as an improvement strategy to address problems/needs identified by data
- Budget allocations to programs based on data-informed needs
- Staff assignments based on skills needed as indicated by the data
- Organized factual reports to the community about the learning progress of students
- Goal-setting based on data about problems and possible explanations
- Staff meetings that focus on strategies and issues raised by the local school’s data
- Regular parent communication regarding the progress of their children with specific data
- Grading systems based on common criteria for student performance that reports progress on the standards as well as work skills
- Administrative team meetings that focus on measured progress toward data-based improvement goals
North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, October 2002