To the Editor:
Eric Osberg rightly noted in his excellent Education Gadfly editorial ("A byte at the apple," November 20, 2008) that--
Just as companies use "balanced scorecards" and customer satisfaction surveys to track their organizational performance beyond the bottom line, schools must look far beyond achievement data. This will allow them to evaluate such basic necessities as lighted classrooms, efficient bus routes, safe hallways and classrooms, and teacher hiring practices. In other words, schools need "measurement for performance" as well as "measurement of performance," in order to be well-run enterprises that enable rather than hinder effective teachers and dynamic classrooms.
I thought you might be interested in a very exciting effort by the Council of the Great City Schools and its members to develop exactly the kinds of indicators you were advocating. The Council has produced an extensive array of "key performance indicators" in such areas as transportation, food services, maintenance and operations, procurement, safety and security, finances, information technology, and human resources.
The project has come up with over 100 indicators so far; collected comparable data from the nation's largest urban school systems on these critical functions; and tracked them over the last three years. You can find data from big city schools, for instance, on such items as budget variations, audit findings, security incidents, highly qualified teachers, custodial workloads, per pupil transportation rates, and technology costs. I don't know of any comparable project in either education or municipal government that has gotten as far as this one. Moreover, we are automating the system so urban school districts can see how differing practices affect their standing compared with other cities; developing "standards" for each district to shoot for; and are writing case studies on why some districts seem to show consistently positive indicators. The work hasn't gotten much press attention, but the project is "on fire" in the urban districts as everyone is trying to squeeze out every efficiency in our operations.
You can read more about this effort in a fascinating 260-page report, "Managing for Results," here.
Michael Casserly
Executive Director
Council of the Great City Schools