Making Sense out of Comprehensive School-Based Information Systems

A school-based information system for ongoing building-level improvement efforts was tested at a suburban senior high school near Los Angeles that was already beginning to use a computer-based information system. Three basic data report forms were generated by interactive work groups of teachers, administrators and CSE staff to provide data on individual students (the information most interesting to the teachers), on classrooms, and on the school as a whole (which attracted the most involvement from administrators) . Issues in information use that emerged as the participants collaborated included a division between diagnostic, or clinical, use and organizational, or social, use; the increasing sophistication of school personnel in handling data; the perceived power of data to drive decision-making; the possibilities of information abuse; distinctions between information and knowledge; teachers’ primary reliance on their own personal knowledge in decision-making; the need to present complex information in simple form; and the reciprocal educative function of a collaborative effort between between researchers and school personnel.