"It’s wonderful," she said.  "The studio’s bought into it.  The bank loan’s on track.  We’re scouting locations.  We’re even thinking about casting."

"No," he said.  "I mean, how are you coming with the script."

"Oh, the script."  She paused.  "I’d almost forgotten about it.  I’ve been so busy."

School board members can get caught in that trap.

Our board deals with budgets and bargaining, custodians and computers, litigation and lighting, regulations and reports -- and polluted wells at Hills Elementary.

It’s like the line, "It’s hard to concentrate on draining the swamp when you’re fighting off alligators."

There’s not much time to think about education.

What’s gone largely unnoticed, however, is that our board is making the time.

With Superintendent Grohe’s gentle urging, Director of Instruction Pam Ehly’s professional efforts, and the board’s acquiescence, so far every board meeting in 1999 has included a report about education.  What a concept!

Ehly has provided multiple analyses of our schools’ Iowa Tests of Basic Skills scores. Responses to a 44-question student questionnaire (e.g., 20% watch more than two hours of TV daily).  How our graduates do in college.  An early grades language arts assessment.

There are many sources of data, and ways to slice it.  And different people and purposes for its use.

When ITT needed FCC approval to acquire ABC, ITT’s CEO, Harold Geneen, had over 400 boards of directors reporting to him.  Even with the 14 briefcases Geneen’s staff carried everywhere, he couldn’t know the details of every subsidiary.

To paraphrase Senator Howard Baker’s Watergate refrain, "What do we need to know, and who needs to know it?"

Some use test scores as an end, to rank or grade (called "evaluation").  They’re more useful for a student, teacher, or parent as a means, a diagnostic tool (called "assessment").  What skills require more work with, and from, this student?

My football coach didn’t use tests to "evaluate" my blocking and tackling, give me a "C-" and a social promotion. He used them for "assessment," ongoing diagnosis, a way to improve the performance of one gangly left tackle.  He held up a standard of excellence.  We worked together until I met it – and ultimately made all-conference.

There’s a classroom analogy.  "Teacher as coach" is one of the concepts advocated by the national Coalition of Essential Schools.  Others include "mastery" and "performance."

A principal may use summaries of test data to evaluate the school’s students. The superintendent’s summary provides insights into buildings’ variations.  School board members’ summaries provide oversight of the district.

We can’t examine individual test results for 10,500 students.  The board has to use the numbers in a different way – and with care.

The UI’s  H.D. Hoover has an international reputation in testing.  He creates tests and knows their value.  But he’s equally quick to point out their limitations and potential misuse. "There’s too much emphasis on them," he says.  He welcomes school boards using additional measures – such as attendance (one of the best predictors of student achievement), drop out rates, numbers going on to college, and how well they do there.

How about measures beyond college?  How are our students doing 10, 20 or 30 years after high school?  Isn’t that, in one sense, what it’s all about?  How many are in the professions – and in prisons?  How many are in their prime – and in public health statistics?  How many are continuing education students – and couch potatoes?

• What information do we want?  My bathroom scale tells me my body fat percentage as well as my weight.  Which is most important?

• How will we use it?  Any bathroom scale provides useful information about weight.  But in the hands (or under the feet) of an anorexic the information can be, quite literally, deadly.  It’s what we do with the information that counts.

(Example: "maintain an annual graduation rate of 98 percent").

This month, indeed this evening, the school board is beginning its process of goal setting and long range planning.  Ideally, it’s a never-ending job of data gathering, analysis, evaluation, reporting against goals, and revision.

What’s most important?  What’s the most appropriate way to measure and report it?  What goals, what measures of improvement, can we realistically hope to attain?

What do we have to do to attain them?

It won’t be quick.  It won’t be easy.  But the board’s answers can be a major stimulus to improve the quality of education for our district’s students.

Nicholas Johnson is a member of the Iowa City School Board.