Shared Vision: The Foundations of a Healthy Data Culture
We’ve heard plenty about education data: what it is, what it can do for students and why it’s so important. Much less discussed is the concept of data culture: the way an organization views and uses data to inform decision making. Here at Simplicity, we discovered the importance of data culture through our client work. Some of our clients love data; others would rather pretend that it doesn’t exist. Over time, we’ve begun to see that these differing approaches to data are expressions of a much larger set of organization-wide beliefs and practices regarding data.
We realized that the world of education often doesn’t view data culture as something that an entire school shares. Sure, there are lots of professional development resources on how to use data in a single classroom, but often it stops there, leaving the concept of a school-wide data culture relatively unexplored. We believe that taking the leap from the classroom to the school-wide or even district level is critical because it helps to tackle deeper institutional challenges. Solving such issues, we hope, will improve outcomes for all students in a school building – not just those fortunate enough to be assigned to the classroom of a teacher with strong data systems.
The foundation of a positive educational data culture comes down to one thing: a shared vision. Shared vision refers to the core beliefs that all educators in a school (or district) must uphold in order for data to be supportive of positive student outcomes. While there are additional beliefs around which a school may choose to unite, we’ve identified four that are absolutely essential.
Belief #1: All students can learn.
It might feel that it should go without saying that this needs to be at the foundation of a school’s culture, let alone its data culture. Yet sometimes when we look more closely at what educators do rather than what they say, we see instances of misalignment. These moments can be subtle, even though their implications – such as certain students not receiving attention during class and falling behind academically – are often glaringly obvious.
If you’re looking to make your school’s data culture more robust, you’ll want to spend some time observing the subconscious statements about student ability that the educators you work with make through their decisions. It’s worth paying attention to what parents and other caretakers believe as well. After all, student outcomes are a team effort. If the adults at home don’t actually believe that their student can learn, then you’ll be fighting an uphill battle.
Starting here is imperative because, without this first belief, you won’t be able to establish a clear consensus on the fact that data is an invaluable ally in the pursuit of student outcomes and educational equity. If you find cracks in this first building block of your shared vision, it’s time to dig deep into the root cause of where and why this belief falls short.
Belief #2: Data can foster equity.
Once everyone is in agreement that all students can learn, then specific beliefs about the role that data ought to play can take the spotlight. The first of these beliefs is that data fosters equity. When approached in the right spirit, the enormous mountain of information that is at educators’ fingertips can be used to make schools fairer places. But we need to lead with this belief, because there are many other things that data can foster, such as tracking, segregation, compliance or overwhelm (which we will discuss later).
We’ve noticed that, when this particular belief is absent, certain patterns of behavior tend to become more apparent. The first is that some educators will see data as superfluous. We refer to this group as Status Quo teachers (we’ll share more about types of teachers in data culture in later articles) . For this group, data is neither positive nor negative but just an additional responsibility they’d rather not have to deal with. As a result, they are often hesitant to improve the way that data is used in their schools because they don’t see the equity-producing potential of such changes. Often these educators have had to deal with many rounds of new administrators touting great new ideas and initiatives that end up going nowhere; from their perspective it would be a waste of their time and energy to jump on this bandwagon, too.
Convincing Status Quo educators that data can foster equity is a challenge. They will likely not be early adopters of data practices. Ultimately, the key to winning them over is to show tangible examples of instances where responsible and empathetic data analysis is being consistently used to make real change happen and to demonstrate that all adults in the building are 100% committed to leveraging data in ways that foster equity.
Belief #3: Data should drive instruction and policy.
With this third belief, we enter the realm of action. It’s one thing to believe that data can be a tool for good, it’s another to take the risk of applying data-driven insights. Without this step, your dedication to data will be purely intellectual at best and nightmarishly bureaucratic at worst (think of an infinite wall of student data that no one actually looks at or understands).
When this belief is missing, we often find educators who are understandably overwhelmed by data and hesitant to use it to drive instruction. They might think their students can learn and that data is something that is theoretically great but taking the steps to get there is just too big an undertaking. Often, these educators will instead place greater faith in their own familiarity with their students. We refer to this group as I Know My Students teachers.
“Without this step, your dedication to data will be purely intellectual at best and nightmarishly bureaucratic at worst. ”
We’d like to emphasize that we’ve met many incredible educators who belong to this group. Yet even if they are capable of producing fantastic student outcomes, their lack of buy-in or training on how to use data to drive instruction will undermine your school’s shared data vision. When you come across this type of teacher, take it as an opportunity to demonstrate the value of data. There are many ways to do this. However to build greater trust in data, you’ll want to consider which data points will yield the highest value for your community with the lowest lift.
Belief #4: Data gives us opportunities for growth and collaboration, not occasions for compliance.
This final belief is a tricky one, particularly because there is so often that deep and typically well-founded mistrust of education data. All too often, time-strapped educators are asked to collect and upload copious amounts of student data without being given adequate context for why. It’s rare for a teacher to have not spent at least one afternoon plugging in assessment data numbers, never to see or use them again. In these scenarios, data feels more like a tool for creating compliance than for creating equity and driving instruction.
This backdrop makes our fourth belief all the more critical, especially if you’re working in a school that has used data in ways that are punitive. If you find yourself in this position, it’s important to acknowledge that data has in the past been used for compliance. Yet even in environments where data hasn’t been used in problematic ways, this belief is an important ingredient of your shared vision because it sets the tone. Where the preceding beliefs discuss the what of being data-driven – what it’s supposed to accomplish – this one clarifies the how. It ensures that being data-driven doesn’t come at the expense of our relationships but instead opens up opportunities to strengthen them.
While a healthy data culture is far more than shared vision, getting on the same page with these four beliefs is key. In order to do so, you’ll want to spend time closely observing the educators in your building in order to diagnose which beliefs might be missing. Once you’ve pinpointed where your shared vision might be falling short, you’ll be able to determine whether it’s time to revisit your collective beliefs about whether all students can learn, to provide your community with compelling examples of how empowering education data can be or to reform the way you approach data more broadly.
If you feel like you’re ready to put your shared vision into action, we invite you to check out our article on laying the groundwork for a data driven school year for a practical guide on how to use data in healthy, positive ways. We’ll be posting more about the other layers of a healthy data culture in upcoming articles – we invite you to stay tuned!