Leading Data-Informed Change in Schools

leading data-informed change in schools

Selena Fisk, EdD

© 2023 Selena Fisk

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in 2023 by Amba Press, Melbourne, Australia.

www.ambapress.com.au

Previously published in 2020 by Hawker Brownlow Education.

This edition replaces all previous editions.

ISBN: 9781923116009 (pbk)

ISBN: 9781923116017 (ebk)

Cover credit: freepik.com

A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia.

Acknowledgements

Thanks must first go to the leaders that contributed their wisdom to this resource: Catherine Jackson, Chris Mayes, Wayne Chapman and Terry O’Connor. Your generosity and insights have undoubtedly made this a better resource for educational leaders. Thank you!

Next, thank you to my tribe of extraordinary humans: Tim, Tash, Jhye, Darcy, Catherine, Mel, Kate, Bec, Nicola, Liane, Lucky, Michael, Emma, Shelley, Vic, Carly, Bron, Stacey, Megs and Suzanne. Ella and LE probably should get a mention too! I am who I am because of you – thank you for being a part of my tribe.

Thanks to the crew at Hawker Brownlow Education. Mark – you’ve been inside my head far more than most and I love that you don’t think it’s a hell of a scary place! Michelle – you have done a brilliant job (again!), thank you! Alicia – I will never forget going with you to see my first book for the first time. Thank you for believing in me and this project! And finally, to Elaine – you saw something in my work and took a leap of faith with me. I owe you so much.

about the author

Selena Fisk has 16 years of teaching experience in both state and private schools in Queensland, Australia, as well as in comprehensive schools in South London, England. During this time, she has held a range of leadership roles, including learning area-specific leadership (physical education, mathematics and science) and whole-school curriculum and pedagogy (in Catholic identity, student data and performance, and leading learning, data and curriculum change) – all of which have strengthened her passion for viewing students as individuals who need adults to fiercely advocate for them and see what they are capable of.

After three years in the role of Head of Physical Education in South London, where she learned about the power of feedback and transparency of results, Selena returned to Australia and began a Doctor of Education degree at the Queensland University of Technology.

Following the completion of her doctoral thesis in 2017, Selena started her data consultancy practice, Aasha for Schools. As a speaker and facilitator, Selena works with schools, leaders and regions to develop data-informed strategies for schools, leadership teams and teachers. Her goal is to help teachers and school leaders see the inherent good that data can bring, as well as the benefits of using data to develop thriving learning communities.

Selena can often be found engaging in philosophical data chats/arguments with people that initially worry that she is reducing students solely to numbers. She has not yet started having data chats with her staffy–toy poodle cross (yes – it’s a thing!), Ella, but that’s probably not too far off. Selena escapes her data brain by going to the beach, running, playing netball and doing yoga.

In 2019, Selena published her first book, Using and analysing data in Australian schools: why, how and what. She was also recognised as an ACEL New Voice scholar in Educational Leadership Research.

Preface

Throughout the process of writing and publishing my first book, Using and analysing data in Australian schools: why, how and what, I became acutely aware of a number of things that I hadn’t anticipated when I first started writing. The first was that while I attempted to find solutions to the question of how to use data well in schools, I was actually creating more questions than answers. Not only are there thousands of ways in which educators can use and analyse data, but some readers were already in a position where they were comfortable with some data collection and analysis but didn’t know what to do next. Although there are still many people at the ‘learning about data’ stage, there are many more that have moved along the continuum and want to know how to further develop their analysis and insights as well as lead tangible, data-informed change.

Second, as the first book evolved, I realised that the data landscape in schools was changing. In Australia, the National School Improvement Tool has become an established framework in schools, but more broadly across the world, tremendous attention has been directed to learning about and using data across a range of different professions, including in schools. But little educational research and commentary exists to support educational leaders in tangible ways.

Third, in my consultancy work in schools, I learned that some leaders – even those with the best intentions – employed me to be ‘the bad guy’. In some instances, I was responsible for having the difficult conversations with staff and asking the difficult questions about data because some leaders were not sure how or where to start or how to have those conversations with teachers. Leading data-informed change in schools should never just be about a consultant coming in and doing the heavy lifting.

Finally, since starting my first book in 2017, I have been reminded on countless occasions that the conversation about leading data-informed teams and change must be broader than a discussion of the Australian context, as educators around the world are grappling with similar issues to the teachers that I initially wrote for.

Through all of the discussions I have had as a school data consultant, as well as in my work on Using and analysing data in Australian schools, I began to see the need for guidance on methods for identifying strategies for change and how schools should step through the processes of collecting and analysing data, implementing change and celebrating improvements. If we are truly ready to develop effective and innovative data-informed learning communities, our middle and senior leaders must have the skills to conduct (positive and negative) data-informed conversations with their staff and employ them frequently.

This book offers middle and senior leaders in schools a roadmap for leading data-informed teams and communities through data-informed change. While there is much already written about leadership styles, leading change and the benefits of being data-informed, my experience has shown me that transferring an understanding of educational research and change leadership literature to a data-informed context is not always easy or seamless. While leaders may know some relevant literature and have an understanding of what it means to be data-informed, there are no adequate resources that combine research and experience to support the development of data-informed leadership.

As I discussed in my first book, I inherently believe that data have endless potential in our schools, and that data should always be used to have a positive impact in our learning communities and on our students. I believe that data should always be used to catch students out for the right reasons – to recognise things that we may not have known about them before; to show us areas of strength in students; to help us differentiate and cater better for their needs; and to provide opportunities to celebrate growth and achievement. Data should be used to motivate positive change and growth for each and every learner in our classrooms, as well as support their learning in a way that develops thriving learning communities where students are engaged and motivated, and teachers are inspired by the change they can see themselves leading. Data should never be used to catch teachers out, to hold them accountable or to scare them into action.

I also believe it is necessary for teachers and leaders to be able to articulate their views on, and assumptions of, data to others. If we, as leaders, are not able to clearly state our views on any element of our organisation (including data), there is a good chance our teachers will not be able to articulate theirs either. For this reason, and for true transparency, my position on the use of data in schools is as follows:

Data provide us with information about student potential (which can sometimes be different to what we thought).

Everyone can learn and improve with effort and application.

Using data can motivate and engage students.

Data can be inaccurate and/or may not reflect a student’s true ability.

Data should be used to inform planning, programs and differentiation.

Data can surprise us for the right reasons.

Data should not be used to catch teachers out, but to catch students out – whether they are underperforming, flying under the radar or achieving great results.

As a leader and as an educator, you too need to be able to identify your views on learning and data, so you can articulate these to the teams you lead.

Leading in the data-informed educational climate has its challenges, but it is incalculably worthwhile to embrace the data with both hands and see what it can do for you. I have no doubt that when you approach data-informed leadership with and for the right reasons, you will see real change in your teams, teachers, students and the learning community as a whole. Data in schools has immense potential when it is used well – I hope this resource supports you in your pursuit of effective and compassionate data-informed school leadership, and in your change and improvement processes. Have fun with it!

Introduction

The world cannot be understood without numbers, and it

cannot be understood with numbers alone. Love numbers for

what they tell you about real lives. —Dr Hans Rosling

(Rosling, Rosling & Rönnlund, 2018, p. 202)

Data are everywhere. On a Monday morning, our phones know we’re heading to work and tell us whether the traffic on the journey will be normal or slow. Data collected on our online activity feed into social media algorithms to deliver targeted advertising, suggest friends we might know or automatically recognise friends and family in photos. Phones and smart watches track our steps and activity and tell us when we need to get up and move and even when to breathe.

Some people call data the ‘new oil’. It is powering our economy, it is viewed as an asset that requires an asset strategy and a handful of organisations own significant amounts of it. As reported in the Economist, ‘data are to this century what oil was to the last one: a driver of growth and change’ (Data Is Giving Rise to a New Economy, 2017, para. 1). But unlike oil, we don’t trade data for money or for resources – putting it to use in our organisations is how we strike it rich.

In 2017, John Kotter reported that humans had generated more data in the last three years than in all of human history. Take a moment to let that sink in. That is tens of thousands of years’ worth of data versus just three! Similarly, Fisher and Good (2019) found that not only do we have more data available to us than ever before, our daily data-driven interactions per person are set to increase from 300 in 2017 to 4785 by 2025. Whether you choose to argue with the accuracy of the statistics and predictions or not, the increase in data is real and affecting every aspect of our world. Data are creating jobs, changing what is important in our organisations and forcing us to learn new skills. As noted in the Economist, ‘industrial giants such as GE and Siemens now sell themselves as data firms’ (The World’s Most Valuable Resource Is No Longer Oil, But Data, 2017, para. 4).

Despite the massive amounts of data that we have on tap, using data in organisations is not about the volume of data collected but about how the organisation uses the data. Organisations that harness the power of data to create insights and drive action have a real competitive advantage. But translating huge amounts of data into insights does not necessarily come easily – hence the development of the field of data analytics and growth of data science, new university degrees in these fields and the endless number of programs available to display and view data. Data analytics is not a new technology by any measure, but it has changed and increased in recent years and is now growing rapidly. As Tom Pringle, Head of Technology Research at Ovum, stated, ‘analytics is the engine, and data are the fuel’ (2019).

Although there is no question about the amount of data we are collecting, or the undisputed power of harnessing the insights contained within the data, industry analysts estimate that just over 30 per cent of potential users adopt data analytics effectively in their workplace (Fleming et al., 2019). When asked to self-report on their data literacy skills, a 2018 Qlik survey found that only about 25 per cent of business users felt they were data literate, and this percentage was even lower in millennials. These findings contradict what we might expect about the level of data literacy in business, and in the skills of our youngest staff. So, we should be careful not to confuse being technologically savvy with being data savvy!

Two key barriers that stand in the way of an organisation utilising analytics to its full potential are: the access to and the availability of data, and employee skill and ability in using technology and analytics (Pringle, 2019). Until data become part of the culture and not the destination (Fleming et al., 2019), these barriers are not likely to be removed.

Data and education

Schools are microcosms of society and, as a result of the prevalence of data in every other aspect of our lives, data are consuming the field of education. Countries are compared based on how their students perform in international testing; schools are compared using standardised testing and school-leaver data; students are tracked using their individual data and that of their peers; and in some parts of the world, teachers are tracked and monitored (and paid) using data.

Education never used to be like this. The significant paradigm and cultural shifts that have happened in the data space in schools in recent times have largely occurred since the turn of the century. But like in other industries, these changes have accelerated at a remarkable pace in the last decade. As with other industries over the last 10 years, international expectations of education have changed, national education policy and framing documents have changed, and now using data is an expectation of teachers and school leaders around the world. Globally, the use of school data and the comparison of school data are strongly linked to school improvement and evaluation (see Schildkamp et al., 2013; Schildkamp & Poortman, 2015). In this data-driven world, the people investing in our schools want bang for their buck, as ‘modern societies no longer tolerate putting large amounts of money into an education system that does not deliver on expectations’ (Van Damme, 2019, para. 2).

As well as developing traditional leadership attributes, leaders are now expected and need to develop the skills of measuring progress and achievement, using and analysing class, cohort and school data, and sorting through the myriad of data sources available to determine what is important, all while leading their teams to build these same skills and understanding at the same time. This is a huge task. Further, the complexity of expectations around using data in schools is compounded by the expectations and publication of data in local, national and international media.

The data culture and data expectations in schools put pressure on educational leaders, as no one can lead a data-informed team through effective and long-lasting data-informed change if they do not understand the data to begin with. What happens when someone is appointed to a senior leadership role and they aren’t completely comfortable with the data? What if a new principal has always worked with people who have done the analysis for them, and now they’re in a position where they need to demonstrate that they understand what is happening with the data? What if a new deputy principal has never had to be the one that used and responded to data – and now they have to lead data-informed change?

Beyond merely an understanding of the data itself, and to lead data-informed projects effectively and authentically, the leader must also be able to see, understand and articulate the inherent good that data can bring their organisation, and the insights that it could offer that they may not have had otherwise. Many leaders also do not understand how we have arrived at a place in the educational landscape where school data dominates national headlines, country comparisons and school improvement efforts. If school leaders do not buy into the data-informed climate to begin with, they are certainly not going to be able to lead others to effectively engage with the data or evaluate the impact that their school is having.

The place of educational evaluation

Although some educators might philosophically disagree with the use of quantitative measures in education, fundamentally, data support the process of evaluating the provision of education to ultimately benefit young people. The prime objective of educational evaluation in its purest form is actually well intentioned.

Educational evaluation seeks to monitor the quality of teaching, and to facilitate an improvement in pedagogy and learning where it is needed. Essentially, it strives to improve the learning opportunities for young people, so that they have access to better opportunities and teaching. On one hand, this is largely why we entered the teaching profession in the first place – to do the best we could for the young people we teach, and so that we could have a positive impact on future generations. But school evaluation as a label (and sometimes as an experience) tends to be viewed negatively by educators. It is also sometimes confused in its intended meaning and purpose.

Quintessentially, evaluating and reflecting on practice and impact as an individual teacher has been a professional responsibility for years – it is not a new concept in our field. In fact, over 50 years ago, John Dewey (1963) wrote about the need for reflective practice in schools as a way of shaping the future performance of teachers and students. He stated that teachers:

must survey the capacities and needs of the particular set of individuals with whom [they are] dealing and must at the same time arrange the conditions which provide the subject-matter or content for experiences that satisfy these needs and develop these capacities. (p. 58)

We would not have chosen to be teachers if we did not see reflecting on our impact and trying to do the best job we could as one of our core responsibilities.

In the current day, key educational researchers – such as John Hattie and Robert Marzano – repeatedly confirm that teachers are the key school-based influence on individual student performance. Therefore, why wouldn’t educational evaluation be pivotal in supporting the review and reflection of the teacher, and to support and maximise student achievement? Perhaps unfortunately, the evaluation that we often see in the education sector has progressed far beyond the individual teacher reflecting on their own individual performance – it is now dominated by school comparisons, is sometimes linked to funding and, in some parts of the world, is linked to whether teachers actually keep their job.

The collective responsibility of educational evaluation

Sir Michael Barber, a former adviser to Tony Blair, stated that educational evaluation is more than just the responsibility of individual teachers – it is of the utmost importance that everyone else in the school community supports teachers to teach great lessons (2005). Barber said that leadership teams and governments play a significant role in the impact that