Published: March 29, 2007

Information Exchange

Posting computer analyses of test results is now common practice in some data-driven public schools.

At Maplewood Elementary School, the signs of data-driven instruction are impossible to miss.

The halls are plastered with computer-generated charts of student performance. Students talk of their “aim lines”—plots of test scores showing how much they need to improve. Even kindergartners fill in graphs of their results with crayons.

Ten years ago, things looked very different, say teachers who were at the school then. Students didn’t track their own progress. Teachers had no idea how one another’s classrooms were performing. And they had little way of pinpointing which children needed...