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Illinois School Board Journal - ARCHIVES
March-April, 2005
ASK THE STAFF:
Craft a 'dashboard' to meet board goals
Answering this issue's question are John Cassel, an IASB director of field services, and Barb Toney, a consultant with IASB's Targeting Achievement through Governance project (TAG).
Question: Our board wants to keep a better eye on how our district is doing, especially in terms of our strategic plan goals. Where's a good place to begin?
Answer: Monitoring your progress toward district goals and gauging the effectiveness of district policies is one of IASB's Foundational Principles of Effective Governance. Some school boards use a "dashboard" to help monitor the effectiveness and efficiency of district operations.
Most school districts are swimming in data. Prior to each meeting, board members get a thick packet, and then PowerPoint presentations with more information at the meeting. In the midst of all this data, the key question — "How are we doing?"— may still go unanswered.
Building a district "dashboard" allows the board to highlight key indicators of district function and keep track of relevant data. Deciding beforehand what data you will watch also keeps the board from selectively choosing, after the fact, data to confirm what you wanted to find.
Dashboard analogy
Car manufacturers know that drivers need certain basic data to enable them to use their car effectively — speed, engine temperature, remaining fuel, battery function, etc. By design, a dashboard allows the driver to keep his or her eyes where they should be — on the road — while being informed about key functions that could stop the trip. It's often a tough lesson for new drivers when they ignore dashboard warnings.
Likewise, the board wants to keep a big-picture perspective — "Who are we? Where are we going?" — while being assured that an unforeseen problem will not stop them in their tracks, like the inability to make the next payroll.
So, after dialogue and consideration, the board puts together a set of indicators, and the superintendent is conscientious about collecting and reporting the data relevant to those indicators.
What would a "best practice" school dashboard look like? Each community, because it has a unique identity, needs to create its own. The first step is to define who you are, what you're trying to do and what's most important.
Data is the focus
Monitoring, while key for the board, is first a function of staff work. Essentially the board's task in monitoring is to watch the staff collect and use district data effectively. At all levels — classroom, building and district — the question should be: "Do we learn from our data and hold ourselves accountable to our data?"
A wise board knows it must set the context: caring about data and accountability; providing the resources required; and using data to learn, not blame.
Effective monitoring is a new frontier for many superintendents, staffs and boards. We can learn from each other and, in this area, from corporate America.
Here's a monitoring example from health care:
John serves on the governing council of a community hospital. The hospital is part of a billion-dollar health care system in Chicago. The board of this very large system has put together a dashboard of five major indicators that keep the pulse of the organization:
1. Clinical index (mortality, readmissions, etc.)
2. Patient satisfaction
3. Staff satisfaction
4. Admissions
5. Financial indicators (budget, "profit," cash flow)
The healthcare dashboard allows the board to do its important work and not fear surprises from pesky details that may go unnoticed while the board is focused on the big picture.
Beyond the dashboard
Some new cars contain navigations systems, a feature with the capability of changing the way we drive. Once the driver has a destination, an electronic road map provides directions and reports progress.
Similarly, the board needs more than just a dashboard: it needs a direction and a set of goals marking the way. Just as a driver would be foolish to spend more time looking at the gas gauge than the GPS screen, so the board needs to spend more time making progress toward its goals than on dashboard data.
This is part of the board's "big picture perspective." The board should focus on district purpose and the future. But at the same time, the board can use its dashboard to stay in touch with basic operations.
Watching the dashboard will not get you to your destination, but the information cannot be ignored. At the first sign of a dashboard warning light, the board had better stop and attend to the problem, or there will be an accident and the anticipated destination will remain only a dream.
The great thing is this: it's an upward spiral. If you start using data effectively, you'll learn more about your organization and how you are doing, and your knowledge will help you get better. The key is to start watching your dashboard!