Changing the Culture of Student Performance Tracking

to changing the culture of assessment in the school district. It’s vital that everyone in the learning community recognizes the importance of being able to “tell the story” of a child’s success from grades PreK-12. It’s easy to stay in the September to June “comfort zone” and follow a child’s progress from one end of a school year to the other. Can we step back and be willing to follow a child’s progress from Age 5 to Age 18?

The most effective way to energize teachers around the power of long-range longitudinal data analysis is to send teams to other schools already doing good work in this area. These teams would, hopefully, come back to the district and help build a positive energy mass that would, in turn, permeate the rest of the faculty.

I found a wonderful interview with John Wooden (UCLA basketball coach from 1948-1975) in which he talks about children’s success. Coach Wooden speaks to the power of longitudinal data analysis in his opening dialogue when he points out the importance of growth as a measure of success. Watch Coach Wooden talk about success: