Data Daymares

With only another week left to the school year I have been working hard at being the duck this week.  Even though I feel I am drowning in all of the data I have been compiling, I still try to keep calm, cool, and collective.  This has been a true year of growth for me.  I am now understanding the difference between keeping data as a teacher to direct my instruction and having to use it to prove my effectiveness.   

As a teacher, I have always used the data that I collect as my driving force in instruction.  I have always begun the year with writing samples and informal reading assessments on my students to gauge their starting points.  Most of the time I am saddened at the large gap in their reading and writing skills and make it my goal to help bridge that gap as much as I can in one single school year.  At the end of the year, I am always pretty pleased with the leaps and bounds my students have made.  I can't say they all improve, but I can say that at the end of the day I am confident that I have done all I can to ensure that there is some kind of growth.  With the new evaluation tool in the state, data plays a HUGE role.  While I agree that having teachers keep data and teaching according to their data will in turn make them more aware of the learning gaps in their rooms and then help them in their planning, I do think that it is possible that data be used against them.  I think many teachers wonder, what happens if the data I collect does not exactly meet the goal I made?"  Some worry that this could be cause for low evaluation scores or worse, being fired.  I myself worry about this too.  I believe that in order for this tool to be useful to educators it has to be about giving them the time to learn how to set these goals, collect appropriate data (aside from standardized tests), and use it to gear their instruction.  This takes time and for many teachers this is a new way of teaching rather than doing what has "always just worked."  Unfortunately, those above us may see this as a black and white area without any grey and the outcome could be teachers that are let go rather than given proper professional development to become better. 

Now that I have spent the week compiling my data for this year I feel nervous.  Earlier in the year I used formal assessments that the school had purchased for data use to gauge my students' reading levels.  Many of them are on or above grade level which is wonderful to know.  Having tested them again this week and working the numbers I am finding the data to be a little inaccurate.  A few students that scored in the 12th grade range have now scored a level or so below that.  When I think of the reasons why I believe it is because they rushed through the assessment and did not take their time as much as they did at the start of the year.  So I have to wonder, did they truly regress or is it because they did not take their time?  When I look at the goal I had set that each student would rise by a grade level or maintain their level if they were already above I have to ask myself if I have failed.  Other students did go up in level and others did maintain at the level they were at before.  This shows me that the goal is attainable, but then what about the students that scored lower?  It is difficult to put all of our faith into data at times considering there are so many factors that come to play when we are collecting it.  The students that scored lower may have done worse due to personal issues, tiredness, lack of motivation, desire to be finished, and the list goes on.  How can we account for these factors?  How can we say to a teacher that they are "ineffective" if we do not take these factors into account? 

I have always been confident in my abilities to teach my students and help them grow, but with these data daymares that I have had this week I now worry that judgment will be passed on my teaching.  Aside from the formalized data assessments, I believe it is highly important for teachers to be prepared with all kinds of class assessments to use as data.  Utilizing different writing assignments, projects, and presentations would allow anyone to see that my students have in fact become stronger even if they didn't perform as well on the formalized reading test.  This week was just another experience for me that cements the importance of standardized testing not being the sole data used in deciding a students' growth or a teachers effectiveness.  In many ways it's not accurate at all because the outcome completely depends on the students' state of mind at that given point, and as educators we are the ones that see what our students go through when it comes to test time.  Going forward, the best way to determine our students' growth is to allow teachers to use their own authentic assessments and a variety of them.  Even though I know these data daymares aren't going anywhere, I will continue to get better at proving my students' growth in other ways than the use of a state standardized test.