DR. DESHEILA RUMPH
Data & Decision-Making
Every Data Point Leaves a Clue.
Helping leaders move beyond the numbers to examine patterns, ask better questions, understand what the evidence is revealing, and determine what should happen next.
Understanding the Evidence
What Can This Data Actually Tell Me?
One of the questions I encourage leaders to ask before interpreting a data set is simple: What can this data actually tell me? Different sources of data provide different kinds of information, and understanding that difference matters when deciding what to do next.
I use data to look for clues. A result may reveal a pattern, a gap, an unexpected outcome, or an area that deserves closer examination. The next step is not automatically an action. Sometimes the next step is another question.
Looking Back
Summary Data
Summary data helps me examine what has already happened. It can reveal performance patterns, growth, trends, differences across groups, and outcomes that warrant deeper investigation.
Those findings can help leaders identify the questions that need to be carried into school, grade-level, classroom, and student-level analysis.
Looking at Now
Interim Data
Interim data provides a more current view. It can help leaders identify instructional gaps, examine whether current strategies appear to be producing the desired results, and consider what current performance may suggest about end-of-year outcomes.
Most importantly, it provides an opportunity to respond while there is still time to strengthen instruction, adjust support, or intervene.
A data point can tell us where to look. The deeper work is determining what it means, what else we need to know, and what the evidence suggests we should do next.
Looking Beyond the Number
Every Data Point Leaves a Clue
When I work with leaders around data, I want them to notice more than whether a number is high or low. I want them to look across the evidence, notice what stands out, and use those observations to determine where deeper investigation is needed.
Patterns
What appears consistently across the data? Look for similarities and recurring results that may point to a larger instructional or organizational story.
Trends
What is changing over time? Examine whether performance is moving, remaining relatively stable, or shifting in a way that deserves closer attention.
Growth
Who is growing, and who is not? Growth can add another layer to the performance story and reveal progress that an overall achievement level alone may not show.
Gaps
Where is performance different from what was expected or needed? Identifying the gap helps narrow the area that requires deeper analysis.
Inequities
Who is experiencing different outcomes? Looking beneath the overall result can reveal differences that may be hidden when data is viewed only in the aggregate.
“Aha” Moments
What surprised you? An unexpected result, relationship, or contradiction can become an important clue and lead to a question that might otherwise have gone unexplored.
The clue is not the conclusion. It tells us where to look next.
Digging Deeper
From School-Level Clues to Student-Level Understanding
School-level results can reveal an important pattern, but they do not always explain what is producing it. When something in the data catches my attention, I want to know what happens when we look beneath the overall result.
Moving across levels of data helps narrow the question. What appears to be a school-wide concern may be concentrated within particular grades, classrooms, groups of students, standards, or instructional needs. Each layer helps us understand the original clue more clearly.
The Purpose of the Deeper Dive
Disaggregating the data is not about creating more numbers to review. It is about getting closer to the students, instruction, and conditions behind the original result.
Turning Insight Into Action
Understanding the Data Comes Before Deciding What to Do.
Once we have identified a pattern and looked more closely at what may be behind it, the conversation can shift toward response. I do not believe the goal is simply to find an action. The goal is to determine whether the action actually addresses the need the evidence has revealed.
That may mean strengthening instruction, providing targeted support, examining implementation, adjusting an existing strategy, or gathering additional evidence before making a decision. What happens next should be connected to what we have learned.
Understand
What have we learned?
Bring together the patterns, trends, growth, gaps, subgroup information, and deeper analysis to clarify what the evidence is actually showing.
Investigate
What might be contributing to it?
Consider instruction, implementation, student needs, available supports, resources, and other evidence that can help explain the result.
Determine
What response fits the need?
Identify the instructional response, intervention, support, adjustment, or additional investigation that is most closely connected to what the evidence has revealed.
Continue the Inquiry
What happened after we responded?
Continue examining the evidence to determine whether the response is producing the intended change, whether implementation needs additional support, or whether a different response is needed.
Data becomes useful when it helps us make a more informed decision — and when we continue looking at the evidence to learn whether that decision made a difference.
Examples From My Work
Putting the Data to Work
I have developed tools and learning experiences that help educators and leaders move beyond viewing results to examining what the data reveals, asking deeper questions, and using what they learn to inform decisions.
Data Navigation
Administrator Navigator
I developed learning experiences to help leaders navigate Administrator Navigator, locate meaningful information, identify patterns within the data, and connect what they discover to questions about students, instruction, and school performance.
Looking Beyond Achievement
Student Growth
My data work has included examining student growth alongside achievement. Looking at whether students met growth targets adds another layer to the performance story and helps reveal progress that achievement levels alone may not show.
Looking Beneath the Aggregate
Subgroup Analysis
I use disaggregated data to help surface differences that can be hidden within an overall school result. Looking more closely at student groups helps leaders identify where outcomes differ and where deeper investigation or more intentional support is needed.
Connecting Evidence
Interim & Summative Analysis
I have explored how interim and summative results can be examined together to better understand student performance. Comparing current indicators, predictions, growth, and eventual outcomes can help leaders identify gaps and consider whether instructional responses are producing the expected results.
The value is not in having more data. The value comes from knowing what to examine, what questions to ask, and how to use what we learn.
From Evidence to Action
Every Data Point Leaves a Clue.
Data gives us a place to begin. It can reveal patterns, surface differences, challenge assumptions, and point us toward questions that deserve a closer look. But the number itself is rarely the entire story.
My work with data is about getting closer to that story — examining what the evidence can tell us, looking more deeply when questions remain, and using what we learn to make better-informed decisions for students, educators, and schools.