The Power of a Consistent Data Profile

“Leadership is the art of making complex information simple, so that everyone can understand it.”  Author Unknown

There is no shortage of data in schools. Often, I see different data and different charts used at every assessment. The most common reason behind this is that leaders want to share every angle of the data and give all the information. It may sound like a reasonable thing to do but actually, it’s doing more harm than good. When a leader lays down all the data, it will be harder to digest. There will be no focus as everyone will just try to do everything.

Imagine a car dashboard with all the gauges and meters in it. What if it had a screen for reading a book? What if it had the remote to all the appliances in your home? What if it had one clock per timezone? At first, it might look great to have those things but do you really need those while driving? 

This is what happens when unfiltered and mismanaged data is being shown just for the sake of presenting them. Teachers and staff would have a harder time reviewing and strategizing with this approach. It only adds to an undue level of stress if a person is data overwhelmed.

To simplify data and reduce stress, confusion, and overwhelm, it is important to be consistent in having proper data profiles. A data profile is a set of data tables, data charts or student databases that has the information you need to monitor your goals and know your current levels of achievement in relation to your goal throughout the school year. The charts and tables in your data profile do not change until current goals and results are met. 

If you have identified your most important gauges, there is no need to include all available data. It is not about data collection; it is about data reflection and analysis. With that said, it will benefit a lot if you have a proper data profile, an analysis that consists of charts and graphs that represent what goals you are trying to achieve.

When you have a consistent data profile, you have a focus and a filter to get rid of activities that are taking time away from what’s important. You will be able to have a clearer view of the goal and an understanding of what needs to be done.

School & District Level Data

In working with data charts and graphs, we need to include all the relevant metrics depending on our goal. To maintain consistency, the District Benchmark and State Assessment data charts and graphs will add a new bar or row of data for each data cycle. This will help you and the staff to easily see changes and progress toward the goal. 

In addition, depending on your goals, you may also create these same for grade level, teacher level, department, subject, subgroups, etc.

Here is an example in its simplest form:

Percentage of Students at Proficiency on District Math Benchmark at the end of the year:

BOY = Beginning of the Year

MOY = Middle of the Year

EOY = End of Year

% Prof = Percentage of students performing at the Proficient levels.

When you look at this graph, can you predict what will happen on the state assessment?    There should be no surprises prior to your final test.  

Key Points in Creating this Graph

• X-Axis is always 100% (sometimes a chart program will adjust the axis for the top measurement. To clearly see trends, you will want the axis at 100% each time)
• Create graphs by teacher and subgroups. 
• Create charts by Proficiency Levels if your state requires increased performance or growth at all levels. 
• EOY Assessment may occur prior to your state exam, for example in April. It may not occur at the end of the year. It depends on how you want to use your data to adjust, and target needs to reach your goals.
• If a school does take their final benchmark in April, they do not waste the last month. Target strategies and checks continue until the end of the year. This may include reports for classroom assessment data. 
• The last step will be to enter performance on the state assessment. You will use the state data to determine if you met your school goals. There should be no surprises. If you have an accurate data profile, you will know before the state exam which grade levels will likely meet their goals and which grade levels will not. 
• At the end of the year, tracking state data over time is helpful for identifying trends. This is part of your data profile as a separate chart for analysis.

Student Performance on Standards

Most of the time, teachers would need more details at the student level. The information they need is among the piles of assessments and reports. The school leadership team will need to determine which will be most useful to teachers. It is important to understand what data should be used in order to achieve the best results. You can ask yourself this question:

What will help teachers identify which students need more support, and which standards need to be retaught?

Am I asking you to write and develop something new to track student and standard performance? Absolutely not. I am asking you to look at the current reports that you have available and determine what will move you closer to achieving your goals. If a data report is not helpful, let it go. If you do not have reports available in your current assessment system for what you need, then a deeper root cause may include an assessment alignment issue.

Are you and your teachers getting the information you need to make informed decisions about instruction and teaching?

Once you have clear data tables and profiles, you will be ready to start your data analysis. 

How do you make time for data analysis? By focusing your analysis and discussion on what really matters. I have seen time and time again that this focus will increase your results!