Data drives much of what we do.  Without data, the bits, pieces, and numbers of everyday life, it would be difficult to do much of anything.  Make a cake without the proper data to guide you, and you are more likely to end up with either an explosion or a boat anchor than a cake.  We depend on correct data to make, and alter, plans.  We collect it in many ways and forms, and use it in too many ways to count.  The education establishment needs accurate data for just about every thing that we do.  That data is constantly used to either support the idea that we are doing well, or are sliding quickly into oblivion. Verifiable data should be relatively easy to come by and probably just as easy to manipulate.  If it is verifiable data (numbers, names, places, tests etc.) then it is useful, even if we disagree with how it is used, or have different interpretations of how it should be used.   Considering that schools are, in theory, data driven, one could reasonably expect that our data stream is pretty solid, that we can point to numbers and results that actually mean something.  Maybe, maybe not.  Consider just one thing: the drop out rate at your local school or school district.  It is a number that can have rather large implications for and impacts on, schools and communities.  Finding this number is probably not, or at least shouldn’t be, very difficult.  Perhaps you could just call your local school and get it.  The question has been, and continues to be, is the information accurate?  The simple definition of “drop out” is not simple.  Who constitutes a drop out?  Is it someone who simply doesn’t show up anymore? What if someone moves but doesn’t enroll in a public school?  Dropout?  A student leaves your school for a private home school.  Dropout?  Joins the military.  Dropout?  It isn’t easy to define this one term.  How about the students in your class, or school?  Have they been with you from the start, from Kindergarten?  We are looking at test data for our second through fourth grades.  One question I have is simple enough: how many of the students we have tested have been with us from Kindergarten?  The answer: we have no way to figure that out, even with our rather expensive attendance software.  Would it be helpful to know?  Yes, it would.  For us to figure out who has been with us from the start, it seems,  would require an extensive exercise in physically looking at each child’s record and following it backward to the first date of enrollment in our district. Rather time consuming.  We need that data now, not a few weeks from now.  Perhaps a large district could devote the time to such an endeavor, but I have to guess that most districts that are small to medium in size just don’t have the money to do such a thing. If our small distict doesn’t have the capacity to figure out who has been with us since Kindergarten, how does an entire state, or the nation, figure out what the real drop out rate is? McKinsey & Co. has produced a paper that gives us, it says, “…an ideal vision of what a continuous learning system would look like” .  The State of California wants data that is real, accurate, and transparent, that gives us the ability to track students and educators alike, which they say we now do (students: CalPADs; teachers: CalTIDEs)  McKinsey & Co. proposes a comprehensive system that should lead to this goal.  I want the data too.  I want to be able to ask our attendance clerks which children have been with us from the start, who has actually dropped out, which is to say simply quit going to school in any form, and get information that I can use, instead of a statement that we can’t get that kind of information right now.  I’d like to be able to fine tune our teaching and curricula to benefit our students, and having in-depth, accurate, up-to-date information will make this task much more possible.  I would imagine that teachers, parents, and legislators in other states would like the same capabilities.  I’ll keep you posted.  Let me know what is going on in your state, district, or school.  Let’s compare notes.