Lies, damn lies, and statistics

Educators are awash in a sea of data, and it is sometimes hard to pick where our focus should be, how the data should be used, or what the purpose of the data is. There are far too many people – think of the new My School website release due in early December – who want to rush to judgment with a piece of data. Our business as educators is learning, and learning about the use of data is every educator’s business. Then we are in a good position to educate others (maybe even including politicians!) about the wise use of data.