Street Data: A Next-Generation Model for Equity, Pedagogy, and School Transformation

"In a 2011 summary written for the Centre for Strategic Education, Michael Fullan identified four "wrong drivers" in education policy responsible for stifling successful, effective reforms. These wrong drivers are meant to accomplish improved outcomes for students and teachers, but have little chance of meeting their stated goals without a foundational set of "right drivers" oriented toward measurable, whole-system changes; specifically, changes that build capacity, promote group solutions, focus on instruction, and employ integrated or systemic strategies. Reliance on wrong drivers for equity have resulted in pressures to embrace standards, raise test scores, and purchase off-the-shelf programs that treat inequitable conditions as formulaic. None of these provide educators with the tools they need to engage in hard conversations about racism, cultural hegemony, and achievement disparities"--
Radically reimagine our ways of being, learning, and doingEducation can be transformed if we eradicate our fixation on big data like standardized test scores as the supreme measure of equity and learning. Instead of the focus being on “fixing” and “filling” academic gaps, we must envision and rebuild the system from the student up—with classrooms, schools and systems built around students’ brilliance, cultural wealth, and intellectual potential. Street data reminds us that what is measurable is not the same as what is valuable and that data can be humanizing, liberatory and healing.  By breaking down street data fundamentals: what it is, how to gather it, and how it can complement other forms of data to guide a school or district’s equity journey, Safir and Dugan offer an actionable framework for school transformation. Written for educators and policymakers, this book· Offers fresh ideas and innovative tools to apply immediately· Provides an asset-based model to help educators look for what’s right in our students and communities instead of seeking what’s wrong· Explores a different application of data, from its capacity to help us diagnose root causes of inequity, to its potential to transform learning, and its power to reshape adult culture