Ready, Fire, Aim.
It is a historic time in Wisconsin and America as Teachers, Firefighters, AFSCME, other Unions and everyday people of all ages and class descended upon the State Capitol to let their voices be heard. But what does this have to do with the MEIT Program? Well, studies this week have the cohorts examining school and school district data for performance analysis. If school policy and programs are merely symbolic and do not address root cause problems then the leadership is poor. Students and parents, in such a case, deserve better leadership and, as constituents, have a right to protest and demand competent stewardship.
An
assigned reading compares the Traditional and Data-Driven Decision Making approaches in schools. The Traditional Model involved a lot of guess work and symbolic approaches to school improvement. The Data-Driven Model focuses on specifics and informs decision making.
Earlier in the MEIT Program we used
WINNS to gather data on how well schools were doing in terms of student performance. Once again we returned to
WINSS to evaluate group and sub-groups in the schools and school district. The available data lets one see how well students are doing within their school, school district, and school districts across the state. Careful examination of data informs decision making so that planning and resources address specific performance improvement goals. Rather than blindly lead some symbolic charge or vilify a group, use of data permits school administrators, Teacher Leaders and parents to identify and tackle the real problem areas.
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| The Mother is a Parent Volunteer at her daughter's school |
Brian, I love your tie of this week's happenings to our studies this week. I worry, if Walker's wishes are granted, what will happen to student test scores, especially if class sizes grow beyond what they're already at. What is going to happen to the state of education? How is leadership going to change? Will teacher leaders positively or negatively impact our school's environment in the face of adversity?
ReplyDeleteTrish, with all that is happening I wanted to try and make my blog post authentic and relevant to current studies and events.
ReplyDeleteYou raise great questions about the future of education in Wisconsin given the new leadership. I think Wisconsin has always been attractive to employers due to the educated labor pool. Globalization will send jobs where low costs of production combined with a smart workforce increase profits. If Wisconsin lacks the latter then the businesses must go elsewhere.