Education Data Done Right Book Review

This is a long overdue review of an excellent book Education Data Done Right by Wendy I. Geller, Dorothyjean (DJ) Cratty, and Jared Knowles. For data strategists, analysts, and scientists who work in LEAs and SEAs, this is the only book I know of that covers some critical issues around supporting and improving data-driven decision making in these settings.

Spanning eight chapters, the authors covered the technological and organizational foundations of doing effective and efficient data work in public education and public education management institutions. On the technological side, they started the book with a succinct introduction to two key lower-level components of a sound data infrastructure: metadata and business rules, which are often deficient, outdated, or flawed in many organizations. While it is tempting to jump onto the exciting work of building dashboards and conducting sophisticated analyses, the authors intentionally put this seemingly boring but absolutely vital work at the forefront of “Education Data Done Right”. Throughout the book, they made repeated efforts of drawing connections to this fundamental when discussing other issues by explaining how deficiency in this area can hinder and hurt other areas.

Next, they addressed the elephant in the room - relationship between research/data and IT. The interlocking relationship but blurry boundary between the two have been a roadblock for a while and sometimes create tensions and mistrust. Data science is still a relatively new field that involves both data engineering and statistical analysis. At the same time, there are different views on what education data work is, who should be doing it, and how the process should be managed. While there are probably multiply ways of how the work can be optimally structured, which involves division of responsibilities, distribution of talents, and integration of workflows and processes, depending on the context, education data work continues to suffer from lack of thorough discussions on this topic. The authors did not address this knowledge gap head-on, but did provide practical guidance to ease tension, improve communication, and strength collaboration. Specifically, they introduced some basic concepts and lingos commonly used by IT people and proposed strategies for working with IT department effectively.

Chapter 4 tackles the thorny issue of data requests, which often consumes a great deal of time and resources. Rather than approaching this as a problem to solve, the authors offered a new perspective to treat data requests as opportunities to improve data infrastructure and governance and create new avenues for the organization and external communities to work together. Afterall, we all share the same overall goal of helping students learn and grow. Again, specific actions for turning this vision into reality are discussed.

Chapter 5 proffers a rare and valuable discussion of the role politics plays in education data work and thoughtful advice on how to work with and around politics. Instead of ducking it as a taboo topic, the authors honestly acknowledged the good, bad, and ugly of politics as well as its implications for education data work. Beyond that, they gave a humane treatment of the topic, with the intention of helping readers understand why decision makers behave in certain ways due to human nature, political reality, or a combination of both. Building on that, they directed audience’s attention to five key practices that can help data people better navigate politics to work with and support decision makers.

The next two chapters cover rudimentary aspects of data analysis. Chapter 6 discusses the importance and power of descriptive statistics, with real-life examples of how things can make unexpected turns with or without a solid groundwork of descriptive analysis. Chapter 7 makes chapter 6 more concrete by sharing some basic Stata code.

To summarize, this is a timely book that is well-structured and well-written. To my knowledge, it is the first attempt to systematically examine the various aspects of doing education data work from the perspectives of practitioners for the purpose of improving practices. Kudos to Wendy I. Geller, Dorothyjean (DJ) Cratty, and Jared Knowles! I am sure they have been gathering feedback, synthesizing existing knowledge, and brewing new ideas since the publication of this book. I look forward to its sequel(s)!