Prior to morphing into a school librarian, I taught high school math for 18 years. Math is near and dear to my heart and I continue to explore ways to incorporate math into my life. While purists differentiate between mathematics and statistics. My true love is statistics and how they can be used to manipulate ideas, perceptions and reality. I use statistics to justify my library program. Data collection is at the heart of education today. News articles, blog posts, tv reports all use statistics to describe schools in positive and negative ways. There's been much discussion in education circles on "value added" evaluations. This is nothing more than manipulating statistics to add a numeric value to the evaluation process. Of course, how does this translate for school librarians who certainly ADD VALUE to a school but don't have students that are tested in a subject area? It will be interesting to watch how this discussion and process proceeds especially when it comes to secondary teachers. There are only four subject areas tested--Math, English, Social Science and Science. How do you evaluate "value added" the physical education, foreign language and art teachers? Ah yes, another mathematical conundrum perhaps?
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