EPI Book Recommendations: The Data Toolkit

A monthly-ish column from our friends Jerry, Ron and Howard at Education Partnerships, Inc. (EPI) who work with GEAR UP principals. They will offer a short review of a book that will inspire, motivate, and/or challenge educators. This month, Howard reviews The Data Toolkit: Ten Tools for Supporting School Improvement, by Robert T. Hess and Pam Robbins.

Principals are always looking for the “tools” that can help them do their jobs more effectively and efficiently, and Pam Robbins has hit the mark with her book. Robbins has a long history of providing good advice and helpful resources for school leaders (such as The New Principals’ Fieldbook), and this new book gives principals the tools they need to make sure that they are using data effectively to improve their schools’ performance.

The tools Robbins presents are simple, straightforward, and immediately useful. No statistical expertise is required to use them, and she focuses on the tasks that school leaders must perform effectively if they are to use data to make a real difference in student learning:

• Framing the questions
• Driving the conversation
• Engaging in productive reflection
• Uncovering understandings
• Creating a data-driven plan
• Achieving and monitoring results 

Robbins uses an informal, approachable writing style that reflects both her expertise in topic and her tremendous familiarity with schools, school leadership, and the challenges principals face every day.

Each chapter contains instructions on using the tool, a sample scenario, and examples—practical resources that will help the school leadership team do the best job possible. Also included are case studies that show how data teams, PLCs, and individual teachers have used the book’s methods in their own settings. The culminating school improvement mapping tool guides the team through designing an action plan focused on increasing student learning and achievement outcomes.

There is a lot of information and help packed into 160 pages, so this is a book principals will want to keep close by and refer to often.