Culture and Processes Affecting Data Use in School Districts

Abstract

william a. firestone and raymond a. gonzález School districts occupy a special place in the American educational system. They are the locus of accountability to both local and state government. In recent decades, this has meant that they have a responsibility to mobilize evidence to demonstrate that students are being educated (often in a cost-effective manner). As districts grow beyond a certain size, they take on certain staff functions related to curriculum and the support of teaching, so they house experts who use evidence about student achievement to make decisions. Finally, their staff roles often extend to collecting, analyzing, interpreting, and distributing data, especially student assessment or testing data.It would be a mistake to treat districts as "unitary" users of data. Districts consist of many actors. Data may or may not be used by teachers, principals, and district-level employees. District offices themselves are divided. Decisions about what direction should be taken in a content area may be split between experts in that area and those responsible for compensatory education and for assessment, all of whom may use data for different purposes (Spillane, 1998). Moreover, board members and the public also use data.Whether and how data gets used make a difference. In an extensive meta-analysis, Black and Wiliam (1998) found that teachers' use of formative assessments in their classrooms is associated with increased student achievement. The evidence for school districts' use is less conclusive, but a recent synthesis of available research-most of it case studies-concludes that high-achieving districts invest a great deal in being able to assess student performance and use those assessments to inform decisions about what is needed to move forward at the class-

Building School Data Equity, Infrastructure, and Capacity Through FAIR Data Standards: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable

“…The present-day state of education data systems and infrastructures can be traced to their founding conditions (Zanti et al, 2022). Literature on education data use suggests that from the outset, education data systems were built on the assumption that they would be used for accountability purposes and federal reporting requirements (Firestone & González, 2007; Mandinach & Jimerson, 2022; Mandinach & Schildkamp, 2021). In other words, these infrastructures were not designed to facilitate data reuse among community members or collaboration between researchers, practitioners, and community members.…”

Using assessment data to advance equity: Five things that get in the way

“…Coburn and Turner's (2011; foundational work on these questions focused on developing a sociocultural understanding of the processes underlying educators' use of data (Little, 2012). Datnow and Park (2014;2018) drew broadly on continuous improvement theories (Firestone & González, 2007;Shirley, 2017) and cited equity research by Ladson-Billings (2006), Pollock (2017), andOakes (2005). Both Park (2018) and Roegman (2020) employed Ishimaru and Galloway's (2014) organizational-theory USING ASSESSMENT DATA TO ADVANCE EQUITY: FIVE THINGS THAT GET IN THE WAY _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ framework for equitable leadership practice, drawing particularly on its emphasis of discursive framing, distributed leadership, inquiry culture, and the role of context.…”

“…Both Park (2018) and Roegman (2020) employed Ishimaru and Galloway's (2014) organizational-theory USING ASSESSMENT DATA TO ADVANCE EQUITY: FIVE THINGS THAT GET IN THE WAY _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ framework for equitable leadership practice, drawing particularly on its emphasis of discursive framing, distributed leadership, inquiry culture, and the role of context. Firestone and González (2007), and others, Datnow and Park's ongoing work Datnow & Park, 2009, 2018Park, 2018; is pivotal in defining a relevant subset of the P-12 data use discussion, focused on data-informed work toward equity. Their studies homing in on data-use related to equity entailed multi-year case studies of collaborations among working groups of teachers, and collaborations involving building and districtlevel administrators Park, 2018;.…”

Becoming the drivers of change: continuous improvement in a rural research–practice partnership

“…With sufficient support, school leaders can meet these demands by building individual and organizational capacity through collaborative and systematic continuous improvement efforts (Day et al , 2011). Yet, far too many school leaders do not have the support or sound understanding of how to enact the changes that are needed to increase student academic achievement within an accountability culture paradigm (Firestone and Gonzalez, 2007). As a result, change efforts continually fall short (Rohanna, 2017).…”