We Are Measuring the Wrong Things
We need to move from a focus on output to a focus on input
I have been going back to the question what is the purpose of school?
As AJ Juliani so beautifully states,
We are not trying to prepare students for something, we are helping them prepare themselves for anything.
In particular, given our purpose, how do we measure and evaluate success? In a world full of conversations about misguided topics like “learning loss,” and school being “broken,” (it was built this way) we need to pause.
Starting a school in a pandemic, watching my own kids engage in life, and observing measures we use to mark milestones requires rethinking how we mark progress.
Mostly, we measure output, and it does not serve us.
The Big Idea
I propose a new recipe.
We need to root ourselves in a question:
What sort of world do we want to have?
And from there,
What do young people want and need us to teach to get there?
It comes down to this —→
We want young people to:
develop a positive relationship with learning,
connect and create with people, and
engage with life.
We spend a lot of time looking at products- test scores, papers written, grades.
These are not very good proxies for the things we want-
communities that care about each other,
people who get things done and make things run, and
citizens who are inspired to participate, to make art and music, to learn.
School learning ends in a test, but life learning frequently begins with one.
Making Big Ideas Usable
When we begin to chase a vague concept of an “output” (good grades, wealth, health, happiness), we forget that to have these, we must have quality input.
Here’s the formula.
Outputs depend on environment, opportunity, competitive landscape, luck, etc.
+
Inputs depend on YOU.
Therefore,
Inputs are controllable.
Instead of creating a schedule, a plan. a program entirely around outputs in schools (a paper, a test, a product) at work (responding to emails, writing a report, getting a grant, taking a test), how might we intentionally create space for INPUT?
What would a shift toward measuring inputs look like in practice in schools?
Instead of solely evaluating success on test scores, products and grades, I am inspired by many sources and suggest we find ways to focus on:
how many transferable skills are supported (cooperative learning, problem solving, active listening, connecting with others, public speaking).
how many decisions in schools involve students.
how diverse and representative is the content that is taught.
how close is wellbeing and belonging to the center of learning.
how individual pathways for learning are supported.
how many opportunities have been created through community connected projects.
We can still administer tests, and still concern ourselves with results, but as a means of informing practice, not as a way of labeling worth. We can then measure our success by how our program responds to student needs, not a generalized outcome. (And guess what, I predict the outcomes will rise, too!)
Click the ♥️above if anything in this post resonated for you. I would ♥️ to hear from you.
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I recently started reading Hollingsworth and Ybarra's book Explicit Direct Instruction, and they start the book talking about how their company DataWORKS transitioned from being focused on "outputs (student performance) to inputs (teaching practices)" after No Child Left Behind started.
The inputs that they focus on are a bit different than some of the ones that you have posted, naturally, as they are in the business of consulting with failing schools. I think that some of what they've learned is really invaluable and worth a look for anyone interested in the future of education.
I loved this way of framing the purpose of school: "We are not trying to prepare students for something, we are helping them prepare themselves for anything."