Crunching Numbers, Changing Practices: A Close Look at Student Data Turns the Tide in Efforts to Close the Achievement Gap

When the former principal of Viewmont Elementary School arrived there three years earlier, he found a still-new facility, a friendly teaching staff, and a solid, if noninclusive, core of parents eager to be involved. However, a deeper look revealed a school struggling with change, including recent demographic changes. A closer look at the data showed that, while many children were performing well, the achievement gap between the highest-performing group (white students) and the lowest performing groups (black, Latino, English language learners, and socioeconomically disadvantaged students) was around 40%. The principal and one of the authors of this article relates that he was filled with a sense of urgency and deep moral purpose to change whatever it was about the instruction that the school offered that was not serving their students. This article describes the journey that Viewmont undertook to become a professional learning community and specifically focuses on the role of principal leadership in nurturing a faculty from isolated practice to data-driven, collaborative professional work.