Metrics that Matter

Boards and heads of school often find themselves talking past each other when it comes to gauging whether or not the school is performing well. Board members will draw on their anecdotal experience to find fault, whereas heads will almost always counter by pointing out how the school is thriving. The problem, of course, is that neither data point sums up the totality of whether the school is meeting its goals and accomplishing its mission—those are inherently multi-variate questions. And, just as importantly, the answers are inherently institution-specific.

A small set of related pieces from the Association of Governing Boards (AGB) in its Trusteeship magazine makes precisely this point. While we often receive questions from board members and heads asking what data they should track to understand school health, exactly no one is happy when we say that the exercise of developing a relevant dataset or dashboard that reflects the school mission is the whole point. By engaging in a conversation or series of discussions about what a successful version of the school looks like and what metrics go along with that picture, boards and school administrators can move closer to a mutual understanding of school performance.