As an educator in America, one of the never-ending refrains I hear echoed by administrators is, "What do the data say?" (Actually, they ask, "What does the data say?", but with the urgency of state- and federally-mandated expectations pressing on them, who has time to use correct grammar?) Regularly, I am presented with a steady stream either of research showing the infallible effectiveness of data-tracking on my students, or of the infallible insight into my students' minds that district-produced data offers. The students and I both feel like our blood pressure is being taken far too often to be of any good to anyone, and has, in fact, become a misleading indicator of what's going on in class.
More than this, however, is the "divine fiat" effect that such data-production has begun to have upon people. As I was reading George Orwell's Animal Farm recently, one passage in particular screamed out, "This is my school! This is my district! This is Education in America!" You may recall (or may not - that' why I had to reread it myself) the plot line: Farmer Jones loses his farm in an animal-insurrection following the prophetic and inspirational speech by Old Major (an elder pig) to his fellow animals. The ensuing years see the dreams of the Rebellion - three-day work weeks, humane treatment, equality, the end of human abuses - degenerate into the power-grabbing manipulation of the pigs (led by Napoleon) and their lackeys, the dogs. Along the way, the animals are told one thing and then another; events are remembered incorrectly, past edicts are reinterpreted to meet new expectations, and the trust of the animals is stretched beyond what anyone hopes for. One of the means by which Napolean repeatedly secures the allegiance of his lesser-though-equal animals is by "production reports" delivered through his messenger, Squealer: quantities of food produced, numbers of hours worked, numbers of animals on the farm; in short, how much better life has become after the Rebellion than it was before. One such report goes as follows:
Meanwhile life was hard. The winter was as cold as the last one had been, and food was even shorter. Once again all rations were reduced, except those of the pigs and the dogs. A too rigid equality in rations, Squealer explained, would have been contrary to the principles of Animalism. In any case he had no difficulty in proving to the other animals that they were not in reality short of food, whatever the appearance might be. For the time being, certainly, it had been found necessary to make a readjustment of rations (Squealer always spoke of it as a "readjustment", never as a "reduction"), but in comparison with the days of Jones, the improvement was enormous. Reading out the figures in a shrill, rapid voice, he proved to them in detail that they had more oats, more hay, more turnips than they had had in Jones' day, that they worked shorter hours, that their drinking water was of better quality that they lived longer, that a larger proportion of their young ones survived infancy, and that they had more straw in their stalls and suffered less from fleas. The animals believed every word of it.
Without wanting to detract from the very real evils of the political propaganda and abuse that to which Orwell is alluding, such a description is very apt when it comes to the way education tends to work these days. It's too easy for administrators and academic coaches to hide behind "the data" or "the research"; it's infuriating when they refuse to answer questions posed by teachers that seem to contradict "the data". And you know it's over when this kind of dialogue is the first kind to go, and the only thing left is dickering over deadlines and what the data say.
BHT
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