I wanted to pass along an interesting article from last Friday’s Wall Street Journal on the improvement seen at data-driven schools. Using analytics (and, more important, using the information to trigger immediate interventions at the sign of academic trouble), the Montgomery, MD (USA) public schools have boosted performance on AP tests and even closed the race gap that has vexed educators for decades.
“Montgomery, a suburb of Washington, D.C., spends $47 million a year on technology like Edline. It is at the vanguard of what is known as the “data-driven” movement in U.S. education — an approach that builds on the heavy testing of President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind law. Using district-issued Palm Pilots, for instance, teachers can pull up detailed snapshots of each student’s progress on tests and other measures of proficiency.”
All of this, of course, is not without controversy. The amount of testing required to gather all of this data consistently has led to charges that there is too much prepping for too many tests. There are also complaints from those who believe that not all students test well and that no test can fully measure a student’s ability or performance.
There’s merit to the charges, in my view, but far more important is the ability of educators to engage in real-time corrective measures from extra help to a note to mom and dad. Anything that unites parents and teachers to be able to offer meaningful support is an idea that gets my vote. A quarterly report card and occasional parent-teacher conference don’t deliver enough information in a timely enough manner to shape behavior before it’s too late.
Declining academic performance is a real challenge to America’s future competitiveness. Of course other, already high achieving nations could adopt these practices to further boost their students.
How is technology used in your local schools? Do you think that analytics would be embraced or resisted?
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