Criterion-13

Moving from “Best Practice” to “Fundamental Responsibility”

With its new accreditation criterion on data use, Criterion-13, the NAIS Commission on Accreditation has come to the conclusion that the collection and thoughtful analysis of data on student learning, appropriate to a school’s mission, is more than a best practice in schools. It is a fundamental responsibility of good schools. So what is the difference between a best practice and a fundamental responsibility and why is that difference important to independent schools?

In our view, a “best practice” is something a school knows it should achieve through the conscious application of effort and resources. All too often though, this is done through tactical approaches that yield inconsistent results. A fundamental responsibility, on the other hand, is something a school must achieve. By its very nature it is something that must be placed on the highest pedestal of community focus and commitment. When an element of good schooling reaches fundamental responsibility status, sustainable practices become required. Inconsistent success, regardless of good intentions, is not good enough. The key to creating sustainable practices is strategic thinking: understanding and managing the interplay of multiple resources and processes to fully embed the practice into the operational culture of the school.

For the past ten years, public schools have been on the cutting edge of creating effective data practices in schools. Much of the effort has been applied to short-term, tactical and technical solutions which have produced unsatisfactory and unsustainable results. One of the leading states in this effort, Massachusetts, has recently made a significant change in the philosophy of its approach to data-informed decision making. Whereas before the state focused almost exclusively on maximizing data analysis and technology delivery systems, now the state is emphasizing as its top priority the building of sustainable cultures of data-informed instruction and evidence-based improvement practices. (Data analysis and technology delivery systems have been moved to the bottom of the priority list of responsibilities.) The shift away from a near total focus on criterion referenced standardized testing toward a new focus on strategic, system approaches to building sustainable data culture has begun. Massachusetts is gearing up for a long-term effort. Independent schools should heed this lesson.

With its justification for appropriate use of data in independent schools, the Commission on Accreditation has essentially thrown down a gauntlet to school leadership. The Committee has not labeled these data practices a fundamental responsibility of good schools only to walk away from ensuring their implementation, especially if the fundamental responsibility is seen as an ecological change in the environment of accreditation, without which the integrity of accreditation will lessen. So how is an independent school to respond to this new challenge? One of the first things to do is learn from the public sector.

Yet early indications suggest that a focus on technology solutions and data generation, especially new forms of student assessment, is beginning to shape the landscape of independent school data practices. The lessons we have learned in ten years of working with independent schools and especially our work with the Massachusetts Dept. of Elementary and Secondary Education suggest that a long-term strategic approach is necessary to make new and appropriate data practices sustainable. This means understanding not only data inventories and delivery systems, but also the critically important processes of collaborative inquiry into which that data is injected; the interconnected system of infrastructure resources, environmental conditions, management perspectives and community engagement in which that process must take root; and the long-term implications for organizational and cultural change that are manifest in such an operational shift. Making this even more of a challenge for school leadership are the unconscious cultural barriers to data use that independent schools have relied on to protect their sense of academic independence and the ethic of care that defines their relationships with students.

We believe that effective data practice – sustainable data practice – requires effective data leadership. Only through long-term strategic thinking and systemic approaches will independent school leadership be able to create the environmental conditions for meeting the “fundamental responsibility” of Criterion-13.