Current educational literature contains few ideas that are so widespread or so damaging as "Data Driven Decision Making". (This phrase has recently displaced "Rigor, Relevance and Relationships" as the shibboleth of the neo-know-nothings who both create and profit from the state and national consensus regarding educational practice).
Because most preachers know very little about their own sacred texts, it is entertaining in the extreme to occasionally ask some unsuspecting proponent of DDDM what exactly is meant by the phrase. The typical response is a moment of shocked silence (surely everybody knows that!) followed by an disturbingly similar disclaimer (delivered with almost catechism-like exactitude): "Well, when we say data, we don't mean just numbers...we mean informal data, too, like the observations that teachers make in the classroom and all sorts of ordinary things..." Wait a minute! If when 'we' say 'data' 'we' don't really mean what everyone else means by that word, then why are 'we' using it? If what 'we' really mean is 'decisions driven by the immediate experience and judgment of each classroom teacher' then why don't 'we' just use those words? Well, that's just not what 'we' mean. Quite the opposite. What 'we' more often mean is a sort of slight of hand by means of which a teacher's direct knowledge and judgment regarding her students is discarded in favor of abstract data analysis.
And what is ironically called 'Professional Development' is in reality quite the opposite: training teachers to interpret data regarding their own students as though they had never actually met, never spoken, never shared a passion for learning, a love for the world or for each other. Training teachers, in fact, to distrust their own eyes, their own judgment. Training teachers to avoid risks, to avoid controversy, to play it safe.
What can ultimately be meant by 'Datadrivendecisionmaking' except the abdication of personal responsibility? If the decision was driven by data, then no other decision was possible. Nobody else, properly trained in a the proper conduct of Professional Learning Communities could have decided otherwise. If the results are disappointing, it's not anyone's fault. Nobody is responsible. The decision was not mine, after all, but was driven by the data. The decision was the result of technique and not judgment. And when (not if, but when) the results of this sort of manipulation are disastrous, it is the technique and not the decision-maker that needs refining, resulting in a need for new workshops, new trainings, new shibboleths, new profits for prophets.
Data Driven Decision Making is finally just another delay tactic. It will buy a few more years while its proponents claim that it's too early to judge the results. About the time that the results might be accessible, the next new thing will come along to replace it. The new innovation will require several years of implementation, of course, before its effects can be judged.
