Spreadsheets of data have popped up around classes since the beginning of the third quarter. These are data walls, also known as bulletin boards, which are displays that track student data.

Bulletin boards have been consistently used in Memphis Shelby County Schools (MSCS), but have lately been more prevalent, starting at the beginning of the third quarter in line with the start of testing season. Lists of anonymous testing data (such as from common assessments) are provided to teachers who teach End-of-Course (EOC) subjects to display in their classrooms. Bailey Glydewell, an English 10 teacher, is not opposed to bulletin boards, but shared doubts about their implementation.

“I think that [bulletin boards] could have been a good idea, but this is just like a show horse,” Glydewell said. “It’s just there for people to be able to see it.”

Glydewell also felt that this new expectation of displaying data charts under district jurisdiction, accompanied by occasional visits from district workers, can be disruptive to teachers.

“I truly don’t think that the district should be that involved in the classroom because that’s what we have the [Instructional Learning Team (ILT)] team—[Tara] Bone and [Alberta] Coats,” Glydewell said. “That’s what we have the admin for. I think that the district should sort of be over the school [and] how the school is doing.”

Tiffany Dixon, who currently teaches English 11, worked for the school district beforehand and presented another side of the policy. She provided that this push is not baseless, but is with good intentions, and if executed properly can be helpful for teachers.The main thing that makes data displays ineffective is the execution of them. Many teachers, such as Glydewell, sometimes feel that this approach can be invasive. Dixon agreed about this and acknowledged that these sentiments are well-grounded – she feels like everything is being implemented incorrectly from the district down. Dixon spoke of how she went about her role back when she was a district worker.

“I know this doesn’t apply to everyone, but I had really good relationships with the teachers that I supported because I went in and helped do the work,” Dixon said. “I didn’t come in with suggestions or give them a list of things to do; I was in classrooms every day, all day, working with those teachers.”

In addition to other faults in implementation, timing is also a problem. When things are introduced later on in the year, when the gears are already turning and not at the beginning as new initiatives, they take more to implement and can be met with more resistance.

“If we maybe had started it at the beginning of the year – doing the data tracking – it may have [adapted easily] because they want us to get the kids involved in the data tracking, so had we started at the beginning of the year,” Glydewell said.

Also, when trying to start a new process, another factor to take into consideration is how it is introduced. Dixon stated that with bulletin boards, it is important to provide training and explicitly introduce their relevance to both teachers and students.

“[Teachers] need to be trained and also have their own understanding of the value and how to utilize it.” Dixon said. “And students need to understand that it’s not a punitive aspect of the classroom because it should be encouraging.”