Picciano chapters 4 & 5

I first want to apologize for to everyone for falling behind.  The first few weeks of school create "perfect storm" if you will and I often find myself cheating myself out of my own studies in order to deal with my outside commitments.  Things appear to be much more under control now and I expect to keep pace moving forward.

For week three we were supposed to have read chapters 4 & 5 of the Picciano text.  These were not exciting chapters.  The focus was on basic software tolls that educational leaders in general could use to manage their schools and direct their decision making processes.  While the information was valid and useful it seemed like a "lipstick on a pig" description of basic leadership principles where someone uses data and statistics to inform their decision making process.  Mostly just another example of someone going on and on about a process that most people already perform, but ascribing genius to themselves for having given the process a name.

The point here is that one should maintain a central database with which they will track essential information about all aspects of their school or program.  The data tracked and properly utilized will allow a person to see trends of the past, make predictions about the future, and use these to inform the decisions that they make.

Of the entire two chapters, revolving almost entirely around the use of DBMS, the point that really caught y eye was that the successful implementation of a data-driven decision making process within a school system has the potential to change the culture of that entire school system.  When any person at any level has ready access and the training to extrapolate the data needed to make informed and intelligent decisions there is no doubt that confidence, community, and excellence have the potential to flourish.  However, the obstacles that exist in most school systems, such as lack of training or ability, lack of access or resources, and most importantly lack of desire, have the potential to bring an entire implementation to a grinding halt.

I am not currently in a K-12 setting, but the interactions I have had in such settings lead me to believe that data-driven programs like this would be difficult at best to implement.  I am not against the concept, but as a realist I see very real hurdles in making sweeping changes to the culture of an entire school system.