DR. DESHEILA RUMPH
Data, Goals & Accountability
Using evidence to understand performance, establish meaningful goals, monitor progress, strengthen decision making, and support timely action.
Understanding the Story
Data Should Lead to Understanding.
Data can help leaders see patterns, trends, strengths, gaps, and changes over time. It can also surface questions that may not be immediately visible through experience alone. I believe every data point can provide a clue, but no single data point tells the whole story.
Strong analysis requires leaders to look across multiple sources of evidence and consider what each source can and cannot explain. Achievement data, interim results, observations, implementation evidence, student work, perception data, and other information can provide different parts of the picture.
The purpose of analysis is not simply to report numbers. It is to build a clearer understanding of what is happening, who is being impacted, what may be contributing to the results, and what leaders need to examine next.
Data should help us see more clearly, ask better questions, and make stronger decisions.
Different Evidence. Different Questions.
What Can the Data Actually Tell Us?
Different sources of evidence provide different information. Strong analysis begins by understanding the question being asked and selecting evidence that can help answer it.
Summative Data
Helps leaders understand outcomes, patterns, trends, growth, and differences in performance after a period of learning has occurred.
Interim Data
Helps leaders examine current performance, identify instructional gaps, consider whether current strategies are producing progress, and determine where timely action may be needed.
Implementation Evidence
Helps leaders understand whether planned actions are occurring, how consistently they are being implemented, and where barriers or support needs may exist.
Observation and Work Evidence
Helps leaders examine what practice looks like, how people are responding to the work, and whether expected changes are visible in classrooms, meetings, products, or other settings.
Perception and Feedback Data
Helps leaders understand experiences, perspectives, confidence, concerns, and how the work is being understood by the people closest to it.
Contextual Evidence
Helps leaders consider conditions such as attendance, staffing, scheduling, participation, access, resources, or other factors that may provide important context for the results.
Start with the question, not the data source.
Ask what you need to understand, then determine which evidence can help you see the situation more clearly.
From Results to Questions
Every Data Point Leaves a Clue.
Summary data provides an important starting point. It can reveal patterns in achievement, growth, performance levels, and differences across groups. Those patterns help leaders identify where they may need to look more closely.
The next step is to move beneath the overall result. A schoolwide percentage may lead to questions about grade levels. A grade level pattern may lead to questions about classrooms, student groups, standards, or instructional experiences. Each layer of evidence can help narrow the focus and sharpen the questions leaders ask.
This process is not about searching for someone to blame. It is about understanding where patterns exist, what may be contributing to them, and what additional evidence is needed before deciding how to respond.
Begin Broadly
School
What do the overall results reveal about achievement, growth, patterns, and areas that deserve closer examination?
Look Deeper
Grade or Course
Where are results similar or different, and which patterns require additional investigation?
Examine Variation
Classroom
What differences appear across classrooms, and what additional evidence could help explain those differences?
Examine Access
Student Groups
Who is experiencing success, who is not, and where do patterns suggest differences in needs, opportunities, or outcomes?
Get Specific
Students
Which students need additional support, extension, or a different response based on the evidence?
The first result should rarely be the last question.
Follow the pattern, examine the evidence, and keep asking questions until the information is specific enough to support meaningful action.
Understanding When the Data Speaks
Learn From What Happened. Respond to What Is Happening.
Summative data provides an important view of outcomes. It helps leaders understand where students ended a period of learning, examine patterns in achievement and growth, identify differences across groups, and consider what those results may reveal about the effectiveness of previous decisions and practices.
The limitation is timing. By the time summative results are available, the opportunity to change the learning experience that produced those particular results may have passed. Leaders can learn from the results, but they cannot go back and change what already occurred.
Interim data provides a different opportunity. It allows leaders and educators to examine current performance, identify emerging gaps, consider whether students are progressing as expected, and determine where instructional responses or additional support may be needed while there is still time to act.
Looking Back to Learn
Summative Data
What outcomes did students achieve?
What patterns appear across grades, groups, classrooms, or content?
What can these results teach us about the decisions, practices, and conditions that preceded them?
Looking Now to Respond
Interim Data
What does current performance suggest about student progress?
Where are students demonstrating strength, and where are gaps emerging?
What can we do now to strengthen instruction, provide support, and influence future outcomes?
Summative data helps us learn from the outcome. Interim data gives us an opportunity to influence what happens next.
Used together, they help leaders connect past results, current performance, and future action.
From Understanding to Direction
Goals Should Create Direction, Not Just Targets.
Once leaders have developed a clearer understanding of the current reality, goals help define where the organization is trying to go. A meaningful goal connects an identified need to an intended outcome and establishes a clear direction for the work that follows.
Strong goals are specific enough to guide action and measurable enough to support monitoring. They should make it possible for leaders and teams to recognize progress, determine whether improvement is occurring, and identify when the current trajectory may not be sufficient.
The goal should also remain connected to the people and practices expected to influence the outcome. When goals, strategies, actions, and evidence are disconnected, organizations may complete activities without knowing whether those activities are contributing to meaningful progress.
Current Reality
What does the evidence tell us about where we are now?
Intended Outcome
What meaningful change are we trying to achieve?
Measures of Progress
What evidence will help us determine whether we are moving toward the intended outcome?
Connection to Action
How do the strategies and actions being implemented contribute to achieving the goal?
A goal tells us where we are going. Evidence helps us determine whether we are getting there.
Monitoring Progress
Do Not Wait Until the End to Ask Whether the Goal Is Within Reach.
Goals establish direction, but leaders need information along the way. Monitoring helps determine whether current performance and implementation suggest that the organization is moving toward the intended outcome.
I look at progress as a trajectory rather than a single checkpoint. Current results can be compared with previous performance, expected growth, interim measures, implementation evidence, and the pace of improvement needed to reach the goal.
This does not mean treating an interim result as a guaranteed prediction of the final outcome. It means using the information available now to estimate whether the current direction and rate of progress appear sufficient.
When the trajectory suggests that the goal may be at risk, leaders have an opportunity to investigate further. They can examine where progress differs, determine whether planned strategies are being implemented, identify students or areas requiring additional attention, and decide whether support or adjustment is needed.
Where Are We Now?
What does the most current evidence tell us about performance and progress?
Where Are We Headed?
If the current pattern continues, what does the evidence suggest about our likely direction?
Where Is Progress Different?
Which grades, groups, classrooms, standards, or students show different patterns that require closer examination?
What Should We Do Now?
What should continue, receive additional support, or be adjusted based on what we are learning?
The question is not only, “Are we improving?”
It is also, “Are we improving enough to reach the outcome we are working toward?”
Accountability and Action
Accountability Should Keep the Work Moving.
Accountability is stronger when people understand what is expected, what they are responsible for, how progress will be measured, and what happens when the evidence shows that additional attention is needed.
This requires more than reviewing results at the end of a cycle. Leaders need regular opportunities to examine progress, discuss what is happening, follow through on commitments, and determine whether planned actions are producing the progress that was expected.
When progress is limited, accountability should lead to questions before conclusions. Is the strategy being implemented as intended? Do people have the support they need? Are there barriers affecting implementation? Does the evidence suggest that the current approach needs to be adjusted?
Accountability becomes meaningful when those conversations lead to decisions and follow through. The purpose is not simply to identify whether something is on track. It is to determine what needs to happen next and make responsibility for that action clear.
Clear Expectations
What are we expecting to happen, and does everyone understand what successful implementation and progress should look like?
Visible Evidence
What evidence will be reviewed to understand implementation, progress, and results?
Clear Ownership
Who is responsible for carrying out the action, providing support, monitoring progress, and responding when concerns emerge?
Follow Through
What decision was made, what happens next, who owns the next step, and when will progress be reviewed again?
Accountability is not simply knowing who is responsible. It is making sure the work remains visible, supported, monitored, and connected to action.
From Data to Decision
Move From Information to Informed Action.
Data becomes valuable when leaders use it to deepen understanding and make decisions. The process should move beyond identifying a result toward understanding what the evidence means and determining what should happen next.
Examine
Review the available evidence and identify patterns, trends, strengths, gaps, and changes.
Question
Ask what the evidence reveals, what remains unclear, and where deeper examination is needed.
Understand
Bring together multiple sources of evidence to develop a clearer picture of what may be occurring.
Decide
Determine what the evidence supports and identify the most appropriate response.
Act
Translate the decision into clear actions, responsibilities, support, and next steps.
Monitor
Continue examining evidence to determine whether the action is producing the intended progress.
Data is the beginning of the conversation, not the end of it.
The work is to understand what the evidence is telling us, make an informed decision, take action, and continue learning from what happens next.
Turning Insight Into Impact
Use Evidence to Inform What Happens Next.
Data can help leaders understand where they are, where progress differs, and what questions deserve greater attention. Goals provide direction, while monitoring helps leaders determine whether the current trajectory is moving toward the intended outcome.
Accountability keeps the work connected to responsibility, evidence, decisions, and follow through. When those elements work together, leaders are better positioned to respond while there is still time to strengthen implementation and influence future results.
The goal is not simply to collect more data. The goal is to use the right evidence to build understanding, make stronger decisions, take meaningful action, and continue learning from the results.