Responsibility
By whom?  For what?  To whom?

Optimal Conditions and Resources
Will,  Leadership,   Money,  Skills
Time,  Climate,  Public Engagement

Continuous and Reflective Use of Data

RESPONSIBILITY
Because surveys are frequently used to find out the views of all stakeholders, surveys can be a first step in establishing more formal accountability partnerships. For example, survey data that identify program needs can serve as a springboard for discussions among all of the educational partners about who should take responsibility for meeting each need.

OPTIMAL CONDITIONS AND RESOURCES
The school faculty must demonstrate the will to confront evidence that may conflict with their own views or ways of doing things and to make necessary changes. Because the data can raise difficult issues, a school climate of openness and trust is essential.

The principal and other school leaders play a key leadership role in enlisting faculty support for a schoolwide evaluation process, organizing the process, and finding the time and money needed to do it well. The principal plays an equally important role in establishing the needed climate for reflective inquiry.

Data collection and analysis call for many skills beyond those normally associated with classroom teaching. Although teachers collect and analyze data all of the time inside the classroom, they are usually less familiar with doing so on a schoolwide or communitywide basis. Designing the study and analyzing the data can be quite complex and can benefit from expert help (see Benefits and Cautions). In addition, because data can make classroom practices more public and can reveal conflicting opinions that had previously been unspoken, group process skills are also important. An outside facilitator can sometimes help schools talk about sensitive issues raised by survey and other data.

CONTINUOUS AND REFLECTIVE USE OF DATA
Surveys make an especially strong contribution to a cycle of inquiry such as the process outlined in the School-Improvement Guide. That process, which is ongoing, is part of building and sustaining a culture of reflection and action in a school, in which repeating activities interweave action and reflection.

Surveys help schools to collect important data. Surveys by themselves can yield powerful data at the start of an evaluation process. Survey data from a broad segment of the population can prompt the kind of dialogue about goals, beliefs, and expectations that school communities need to have in order to establish desired outcomes. The data can point out differing perceptions about standards or appropriate use of resources, and can help those in the school community understand one another’s perspectives. Such data, used wisely, can stimulate ongoing inquiry and decision making about what is essential for all children to know and be able to do; can identify needs; and can help to define the questions that will lead to further investigation and spur action.

Many of the schools we consulted used surveys, in combination with other kinds of instruments, as part of a comprehensive evaluation design. In this way, the researchers were able to track the school’s actions and changes to assess and evaluate them.

At the H. A. Brown School in Philadelphia, members of the school community – including teacher aides, parents, and staff members – served as investigators in an action research project supported by the University of Pennsylvania (see Resources). This study is an excellent example of how a school community can use questionnaires, interviews, and observations to improve a school. The process and the path they followed, beginning with one series of issues and ending with other questions and different issues, show the nature of serious inquiry and the time that is necessary to create change in a school. Above all, the case study illustrates the positive influence teachers, parents, and other community members can have on a school when they are engaged in action research and focused on serious inquiry.