Using data to drive school improvement

Abstract

Driving school improvement or doing the work of the devil? Controversy continues to surround national student assessment in Australia. However, I argue in this paper that testing is neither good nor bad: the devil lies in what people – teachers, school, systems and even parents – do about the tests and the data they generate. The paper reports a small study of the experiences of principals, teachers and curriculum consultants in one educational authority, all of whom have engaged with large-scale assessment data for the past eight years. Narrative accounts are used to describe how responsibility for interrogating, interpreting and applying data has gradually shifted from an external topdown approach to an internal bottomup model in a planned, sustained and centrally supported manner during that time. Applying lessons learned from international research, this educational authority embraced assessment data as the medium to drive change and to lift expectations about students’ learning. With persistence, patience and a modicum of pressure, principals, curriculum leaders and teachers are responding positively and with general optimism.