I have written about assessment of a situation via “cut of jib”  here and also in my companion blog, “The Uncoordinated Coordinator“.  And a particularly pointed post about the FSA’s and Fraser Institute here, as well. (Perhaps one of my most highly commented on posts!!)  It is obviously a skill or concept I think about a lot, and yet it gets so summarily dismissed by those who set their sails only by quantitative data. The more involved I become in the organization I work for, the more these conversations arise, and I find myself more and more often in the “I’ve got a Feeling” camp, rather than “The Numbers Don’t Lie” one.  This is the data-crushing time of year, and the numbers ARE important.  But I have to confess, I find it amusing that as we embrace transformative practices in education, including formative assessment, removal of arbitrary letter grades and other archaic concepts, we still want to cling to the standardized measures.  I feel like I have two creatures on my shoulders, one is saying “Yeah! Blow it all up!  Get rid of Standardized tests! Make the world your classroom” and the other is saying “Wait, now, we still have to be accountable, and we need those numbers to inform us if we are heading in the right direction, and also, we can’t just blow everything up and go on hunches.”.  My problem is, I don’t know which is the devil and which is the angel.