January 2016: School Administrator
The potential (and pitfalls) of big data
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Additional Articles
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Data for Turbocharging Management DecisionsImproving cost-effectiveness of personalized learning, staff schedules and academic return on investment
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Answering the Question: ‘How Do You Know?’Evidence-based leadership decisions permeate all processes in the Pewaukee, Wis., schools
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Becoming a Data Champion in 6 StepsHow a suburban district in Maryland uses the data it collects to motivate staff and improve classroom instruction.
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Career Path to the TopMen and women follow different steps along the way.
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The Convenience of License ExpirationWhat to do when a marginal teacher claiming extenuating circumstances misses the renewal deadline?
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When Parents Blow the Whistle on CoachesSeparating the legitimate concerns of abuse from the general unhappiness of parents over their kids’ playing time.
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Where’s the Superintendent Fit in a Successor Search?
When the outgoing superintendent plays a decision-making role, things can go horribly wrong.
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Using Google Apps for Superintendent Evaluation
Each month, the board evaluates itself and the superintendent on a portion of respective roles and responsibilities. These monthly evaluations are accomplished using Google Forms.
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A Few Tested Fundraising Routes
A consultant's favored strategies for raising targeted revenue for schools.
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In the Charter Movement, It Is What It Is
A former superintendent's view of chartering of schools today as a "permission slip."
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Big Data and New NomenclatureThis month’s School Administrator is all about big data. Wow, where do I begin?
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What We Know as Superintendency TrackersAASA’s latest survey paints the current picture of the profession.
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Leadership and Return on Investment
An AASA partner that documents the relationships between program costs and quality.
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A Chance to be Frank in FayettevilleA savvy superintendent has the rare opportunity to operate with frankness in Fayetteville, Ark.
Staff
Editor's Note
Data, Data Everywhere
Elementary and secondary education for years has not lacked for statistical information about students, staff and schools. Today, that steady stream has become a torrent, leading to the notion increasingly referenced as Big Data in education.
Less established is how education leaders can prevent Big Data from drowning everyone in its wake. How can educators make sensible applications of all that data? And how should the mass of information drive decisions that will lead, ideally, to better instruction and higher learning by students?
In this issue, we have turned largely to practitioners for insights and answers. You’ll find writing on this theme from current and former superintendents who’ve been exploring productive ways to employ the data in pursuit of their systems’ goals.
We open the coverage, though, with a hard-hitting piece by John Kuhn, superintendent of a small district in Texas, on the corruption of data use stemming from the high-pressured, high-stakes testing movement. Misguided state and federal dictates, he writes, “are squandering the power of 21st-century data analytics in education by deploying it firmly inside a 19th-century Skinner box of basic rewards and punishments.”
It’s a provocative read, and I hope many of our readers will share their reactions in the form of a letter to the editor. I await your responses.
Jay P. Goldman
Editor, School Administrator
703-875-0745
jgoldman@aasa.org
@JPGoldman
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