Seriously though, back in my day there was a disciplined approach towards being educated and educating your children. Now, there's this strange lingering perception that through some convoluted formula we can pinpoint the exact impact that a teacher has had on a student's ability to perform on tests. The shift was subtle but noticeable. Students are no longer responsible for their own failure, only for their mediocre successes.
Welcome to the new age of metrics and excel spreadsheets. I am curious to see how these metrics take into account the individual motivation of students,the student's annual household income, or the student's social status as a foster child or recently released from incarceration. Because you cannot reduce a student to a mathematical algorithm.
Anybody familiar with the profession understands that the demand for data has actually altered the amount of time spent planning lessons and grading material. It's replaced time that would normally be spent on collaboration or planning to crunch meaningless numbers into multiple data systems.
Microsoft seemingly has the DOE by the balls in the arena. Honestly, schools use Excel spreadsheets more than they use PAPER. Aside from accountants who keep electronic books of financial transactions, schools are keeping programs like Excel in business.
Here's a list of frequently updated data management systems that we have to be familiar with as educators:
- HSST
- ATS
- ARIS
- Skedula
- Knowledgebase
- Datacation
- PowerSchools
- PowerTeacher
- Microsoft Excel
I have never before seen such a swift shift away from classroom atmosphere and lesson planning towards meaningless number crunching.
And what's the worst part of this number crunching is the inability to effectively turnover the data that we're asked to on a regular basis. By the time we get some of this data, it is several weeks old. We can no longer act on it! We're spending millions of tax-payer dollars on systems that produce data that ends up painting a bleak picture, after the fact. If the goal is to get this data to the hands of educators to act on the numbers then the DOE has failed in every sense of the word.
It's like painting a picture on the Titanic while it's sinking. What's the point? It's a waste of time, it's aesthetically useless (unless you're a politician), and it ignores the most important priorities within a school environment.
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