Seize the data: Statistics can be a powerful tool for those who use them

Abstract

At a time when it is popular to distrust data and adopt the view that statistics can be made to support any stance, we believe that ignoring the hard realities that education statistics often present does a tremendous disservice to our children. Education is widely understood to be key to a healthly and prosperous future and those who lead our schools and are responsible for educating the nation's young people need the best tools available to gauge accurately how well schools are functioning and how well our children are learning. This article proposes a comprehensive, practical process for school leaders to use to establish a performance indicator system