BFTP: Test data - for kids or politicians?

When I go in for my annual physical every three or four years, the clinic collects a lot of data from me. Blood tests, EKGs, blood pressure, and polyp counts (butt let's not go there.) At the end of my exam, the clinic has a lot of potentially useful data.

So what if the hospital then took all those numbers, aggregated them with the numbers of other patients, and used the averages to evaluate:

• the quality of the clinic
• the quality of specific treatments
• the quality of the physician
• the quality of health care in the United States compared to other countries

but totally ignored what that elevated blood pressure might mean about my personal health?

Educators, is this how we are using the testing data we collect on students? Are we using it for everything but actually helping individual kids?

Until every student has an "educational health chart" used by a knowledgeable and caring teacher to individualize learning experiences, data is working for politicians, not kids, parents, or teachers.

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Original post 8/2/14