The heart of improvement is to do more of what works, less of what does not… and to know the difference. In order for America to work effectively, our schools must work effectively.

This section explores the meaning of success in education. The first step is to ask: Success for whom? Parents and teachers typically care most about success for the individual students in their care. But district, state, and community leaders are likely to care a great deal about the success of whole schools and districts, as well as the entire public education system.

Data systems make it possible to combine "outcome" information for individual students into measures of the system’s success. Doing so, however, has been harder in California than in many other states, largely for political reasons. This chapter explains why that’s the case as it explores the many ways to define and measure educational success. We have covered plenty of controversial topics already; this one might be the biggest of all. Please sign in to add your insights.

What's in this Chapter?

We convinced Jeff to narrate a short video preview of each lesson. We hope you get a kick out of the awkward expressions we captured him in...