¶ … data collection and analysis legitimize the goals and strategies educators create for change and improvement?
Given today's emphasis on standardized testing in the era of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), using data-driven analysis to legitimize various educational strategies is essential. "Daily life in districts and schools requires educators to effectively navigate a sea of data: diagnostic and norm-referenced standardized assessment data, reading assessment data, state and local assessment data, in combination with other data related to instructional programs and demographic, attendance, and dropout trends" (Ronka et al. 2008). Ideally, educators can use data such as student assessments to tailor the learning experience in a more effective fashion and incorporate formative assessments within the classroom to ensure that lesson plans are responsive and flexible to student needs. On a macro level, districts can use data tracking to see what types of teaching methods are effective or ineffective. Although teachers are always getting feedback in terms of student reactions, often this can be tainted by inevitable personal impressions and biases. Data, properly...
2008). The level of refinement of this data allowed teachers to more specifically zone in on what strategies were effective and which were not. "With the assistance of the data coach, school principals developed a dissemination plan that identified what data would be available and when, who would get the data, and how staff members might use it" (Ronka et al. 2008).
Teachers can be naturally resistant to being forced to change teaching strategies without evidence that the changes work and if they feel that the data used to support those changes is not representative or fair, they…
