An excellent post titled Can Data Threaten Good Teaching? can be found at the Teacher Leaders Network website.

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In order for data to be meaningful, as many variables as possible need to be controlled. If you are to compare students in different classrooms, the instruction needs to be as similar as possible. So as we go forward, if we view the solution to our educational troubles as being the generation of meaningful data, then we will tend to seek to standardize curriculum, instruction and assessment as much as possible, so the data will have the greatest possible validity.

But there are some huge problems with this approach. One large problem is that we are attempting to standardize all these factors in order to generate reliable data. But it is not clear that the new data is substantially better than the data we have had in the past, or that we have interventions that are appropriate responses to the data.

But the bigger question I would raise is the hidden cost of all this standardization. From the edu-technocrats’ point of view, it is no problem to expect the teachers to follow this or that timeline, or use this or that scripted curriculum. But as accomplished teachers, we know there is a huge cost paid by the teacher and students. The teacher has lost discretion to craft a sequence of lessons that reflects her best knowledge and her understanding of her students -- and the students have lost access to her special knowledge, and her ability to respond to their interests, strengths and weaknesses.

I think the standardized teaching model is having trouble. Its flagship vehicle, No Child Left Behind, is in grave jeopardy, and the serious problems of equity in our schools have not been substantially shifted, in spite of the "bright light" high-stakes test data have shone on them. As the model begins to sputter, its proponents look to rescue it by intensifying the standardization, making the systems even more thorough and reliable, unwilling to recognize the flaw in the premise.

The flaw in the premise, from my point of view, is that we are dealing with an immensely complex human enterprise. In a single classroom with 20 learners, we have a wide range of abilities and aptitudes, interests and backgrounds. No matter how good the scripted curriculum, no matter how sophisticated the tests, the decisions made by a strong teacher based on skillful classroom assessment practices will, on the whole, be better than those that would be made as a result of the standardized system.

In order to take advantage of this expertise, of course, you must empower and trust that teacher. You must invest in that teacher (and the development of more teachers like her), and create the conditions that sustain and support her. You can ask her to be accountable, but only if you give her the support and autonomy she needs to be effective and in charge of the learning for which you are making her responsible.
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The teaching strategies promoted by the Newburgh School District Central Administration often incorporate this data driven approach. "Curriculum mapping", "Curriculum Alignment", the "Audit of Curriculum", the attempted quarterly district-wide subject tests all tend to view standardization as either something desireable or as a given. How are we empowering and trusting our teachers? How are we taking advantage of their exprtise? How are we encouraging them to develop skillful classroom assessment practices?