Failing Data in Education Reform
June 5, 2012
Few phrases have been written or uttered more often than "data-driven instruction" or "evidence-based decision making"since No Child Left Behind (NCLB) codified "scientifically-based" practices in 2001.
The accountability era begun in the early 1980s intensified the near mania for data in the U.S. that can be traced back to the first few decades of the twentieth century and the promises associated with quantifying student learning and teacher quality through standardized testing. Although the past century and the more recent thirty-year cycle of accountability based on standards and standardized testing have not delivered on the promises (see Hout & Elliot, 2011), "No Excuses" Reformers, including the current Department of Education headed by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, remain steadfast in pursuing better tests based on better standards.
The "No Excuses" Reform movement is driven by bully politics that ironically includes an unbending faith in data and