STAR TECH: The Next Generation...of Attendance

In her last year of a degree program in Justice Studies, my daughter took a course called “Surveillance in Society.” The readings and discussion were around intrusions into personal privacy and data made possible by technology. Dear Daughter and I had many amusing conversations about some of the assignments—for example, “Are Bar Codes the Mark of the Beast? Discuss.”—which struck me as paranoid in the extreme. Dr. Crazy, as she called the professor, was obsessed with our imminent loss of civil liberty, always urging his undergrads to be suspicious of anyone asking for personal information, and, presumably, scanning the sky for black helicopters.

In an earlier blog, I mentioned Gary Stager’s observations on the three ways schools use technology: #1) to make the system more efficient and attractive, #2) to enhance and highlight teaching, or #3) to give students control over their own learning.  I think Bill Ferriter and I have been talking, mainly, about #2—but I have been thinking a lot about #1, the use of technology to gather data and “streamline” normal school processes, like testing, attendance, scheduling and grading, and to present an image of a “21^st century school.”  Here is a very simple story about data collection and our (perhaps naïve) belief that All Technology is Good.

Ten years ago, my district opened a new middle school, full of state-of-the-art technological systems. We were the envy of the other buildings, with fully networked software to handle all our data needs. We got some training and the big pitch—our new procedures would save time, paper and man-hours, give us more accurate data, impress parents with e-communications, and make life smoother for the secretaries who had been handling many of those chores.

Under Old Attendance procedures, every teacher took attendance once, at the same time every morning, recorded it in their grade/attendance book, and sent a student to the office, with an attendance form, printed on scrap paper from recycle bins. Secretaries recorded these on a master list, and handled absence data for students who came/left during the day. Teachers got a copy of the master list, to help confirm absences when students needed to make up work. 

Under New, Improved Attendance procedures, every teacher had a computer, with separate attendance book and gradebook functions. Teachers were now required to take attendance every hour, and enter absences and tardies on the computer within a five-minute window. We were not allowed to keep the attendance program open on our computer desktops (because our gradebooks, protected by the same password, might be accessed by devious students)—so we had to log in every hour. Because this was 1998, the server’s horsepower was severely strained by 40 teachers logging in simultaneously, and it would take 30-60 seconds for the program to load. Teachers who forgot to take attendance within 5 minutes would be called by the office (where a secretary now sat, monitoring the data coming in every hour), disrupting teachers’ lessons. And if someone had a missing assignment, you had to toggle between attendance and grade programs to discover whether the child had been absent.

A process that had taken two minutes of teacher-time daily suddenly began to take up to two minutes every hour. Best-case scenario, teachers would lose an extra minute of instructional time each hour: 25 minutes/week, 2 class periods per month, 18 class periods per school year—or 3 full days of instructional time. Taking attendance.

Lest you think I’m being overdramatic (or are dying to tell me that faster computing and better software have eliminated problems and made attendance-taking an absolute joy)—I tell this story not to whine about record-keeping, but to question our automatic goal of “efficiency” and the uses and purposes of data collection.

At a staff meeting, I asked why it was now vitally important to have hour-by-hour data on attendance. The state requires only daily absent/present data, and then only to ferret out kids who weren’t actually attending school, but had been counted for funding purposes. A student who went AWOL would not necessarily be picked up any quicker under the new system, and most of our mid-day leavers were signed out to go to the orthodontist with their mom, anyway.

The new system made data-entry mistakes six times more likely, and kept a secretary busy checking on students who were marked present one hour, but absent the other five due to teacher error. I had great sympathy for “careless” teachers who rushed through the attendance procedure to get started on, you know, teaching—only to be monitored and chastised later. I was one of them. And nobody in the office could explain why or how, precisely, the new system was helping us do a better job of serving kids. The on-line gradebooks and computer-based scheduling also came with attendant, unanticipated problems.

Schools pay attention to what they value. In fact, we were taking attendance six times a day because we could—because our exciting new technology had made it possible. We collected the data first, and decided how to manage it later, a pattern repeatedly endlessly in thousands of schools. We assume that everything can be done faster, cheaper and better through technology; sometimes, the rationale runs backwards—we adopt the technology, and then invent reasons for why we need it.

I have not turned into Dr. Crazy. I admire and respect teachers who integrate elegant uses of technology into instruction, who understand the difference between the teacher and the tool. Bill Ferriter’s concern over being labeled “decidedly average” is a function of #1)—data collection made possible by technology that values numbers over concrete examples or using technology to serve the system, not the teacher—and especially, not the student.

Comments

[Kristy]

I totally agree. Technology can be great but I can be a big pain also. Especially when it doesn't work when it is suppose to!! I do like keeping my grades on the computer, it makes my life a lot easier.

[David Cohen]

Too often, the questioning begins and ends at "can we?" and neglects "should we?" I'll pass along an anecdote from my college graduation speaker ( yes, I actually paid attention and try to apply a lesson from a graduation speech!).

Staring at the devastation of the Exxon Valdez oil spill coating an Alaskan beach, most of us would surely wish the spill had never happened, and figure the best thing to do is clean the beach up as quickly and completely as possible. Fortunately, there is a steam blasting device that helps break up oil on and in the sand. Who would stop to ask, "Should we remove all the oil in the most effective way possible?" Only problem was, the steam blaster killed the micro-organisms in the sand and gravel, the only remaining life on the beach, the lowest level of the food chain. So the dirty-but-not-yet-dead beach became the cleaner-but-sterile beach.

But back to the classroom... more on record keeping technology. We CAN calculate a high school student's grade down to the hundredth of a point, at any given moment in the year. Should we? Do all students benefit from monitoring minute fluctuations in their grades? Is it beneficial to all students to know exactly what the quantitative impact of a bad quiz will be? Should they be thinking about their upcoming English project in numerical terms, with mathematical purposes? And for the more math savvy students, is it a good thing for their education when they realize that whether they earn an A, B, or C on the final exam, they'll end up with a B in the course? (Assuming of course that the final exam has any inherent educational value - I'd like to think mine does).

[Nancy Flanagan]

Hi Kristy and David--and thanks for visiting. David, you just wrote my next blog, on the questions I had about on-line grading.

I agree with Kristy--it *is* slick when the gradebook program weights and averages your grades in two seconds, saving you hours with the calculator. It also takes the human judgment element away--and that can be both good and bad. The kid who is .01 away from a B- (who might have gotten a B- from a teacher who has noticed the kid diligently pulling herself up from a D earlier in the term) is locked in at C+ unless the teacher requests an override from the data program administrator. Is that good--or is that bad?

Depends, I suppose, on whether you're assessing student work and growth--or calculating grades.

[Craig A. Cunningham]

Nancy...thank you for your comment on education policy blog....am wondering if you would like to join our blogroll....I see you are already blogging (at lot, here and at Ed-World), but we would love to include someone of your perspective in our conversations. You can contact me at http://craigcunningham.com. -Craig

[David Cohen]

Nancy -

Credit where credit is due! (Smile). Then borrow from me all you want.

One more thing on giving kids a break with grades... in my course materials, I state explicitly that the computer works for me and not the other way around. I reserve the right to adjust grades when the number doesn't suit the situation, and then I proceed to give examples of why I'd adjust either way. Never a complaint when I do occasionally turn a D+ into a C- or a C+ to a B- (probably happens once or twice a year).

I learned my lesson about putting it in writing when I had a student (at my prior job) caught plagiarizing a major assignment, and even with the zero on that one, would have come up with 90.0 in the class. I took a stand and said that if we are stuck with a single letter grade to sum up a semester, then "A" and "plagiarism" are incompatible. They fought it, but my administrators kept out of it, which I like even more than having them jump in on my side. Sends the message that there's not even an issue requiring our involvement, the teacher has it under control.

[Nancy Flanagan]

Better that the teacher--or even building administrator --has it under control than the grading program. I'm with you--blatant cheating is incompatible with an "A," no matter what the numbers say.

[Gino Sardiello]

I agree that technology really helps with a teachers workload. We are now able to do twice as much planning, grading, and communicating at great speed and length. The only small problem is if there is computer clich you always need a back-up plan.

[Nancy Flanagan]

Dear, ummm, Gino?

I believe I see your tongue stuck in your cheek. Although I'm sure your average school administrator, in these days of "efficiency" in school management, would be nodding in agreement at your post--yes, yes, faster, longer, more of everything.

And my point was that was that we collect data with something approaching religious conviction, but it doesn't make us more effective. Robert Garmston says that more data doesn't improve prediction--but it's easier to gather and organize than analyze.

It was a simple story. The other part of the tale was also predictable: when there was a "server" failure to back up the attendance data during a power outage, we lost attendance data, and for the rest of that year, we had to take attendance in both our attendance books and our computer program-- wasting another day or two of instructional time.