NOSCA: National Office for
School Counselor Advocacy

As the education reform movement sweeps across the country, catchphrases such as "data creates the urgency for change" have become familiar euphemisms. According to the e-Lead Leadership for Student Success, a partnership of the Laboratory for Student Success and the Institute for Higher Education, using data is a "relatively new element in education reform, the successes it has brought about throughout the nation make it an unavoidable element for change."

The change referred to here is closing gaps in educational outcomes between student groups, an issue that exists across the nation. The need for this change — to end educational disparities — is so real that this phrase is often the title of workshops, the central theme of conferences, and incorporated into keynote speeches and published articles. This occurs implying that the data itself will create an urgency in us to make a change. Yet I can't help but wonder if there is a critical piece that's been left out of that phrase.

Let me explain. When I think about numbers I think about symbols that provide information. That information may or may not have meaning to me. Numbers have relevancy only when I place a value on them, when they impact me in some way, or when they represent something that I find acceptable or unacceptable. For example, how much money I make, how much something costs or the value of my 401K — especially during these economic times — are all numbers that I value.

When I apply that thinking to our catchphrase, I wonder if it was developed by someone who believed that the inequities in educational outcome data are so unacceptable that it drove him or her to change behaviors and practices. At the same time, the creator made the assumption that it would have the same effect on others.

Clearly that phrase has impacted many counselors and educators by creating in them an urgency to change, but has it motivated all of us to do the same? Given that we often now express educational inequity in terms of the financial cost to states and our nation, I can only conclude that the inequities revealed by the numbers did not have the impact one would hope for as a moral mandate.

So perhaps a rewording of the phrase could read "Data can create the urgency for change if we believe the inequities among student outcomes are unacceptable and then, that we have the courage to do something about it."