Statistics Made Simple for School Leaders: A New Approach for Using Student, Staff, and Community Data

141 Pages·2022·3.483 MB·English

by  Susan Rovezzi Carroll, David J. Carroll

Statistics Made Simple
for School Leaders

Statistics Made Simple
for School Leaders
A New Approach for Using
Student, Staff, and Community
Data
3rd Edition

Susan R. Carroll
David J. Carroll
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD
Lanham • Boulder • New York • London
Published by Rowman & Littlefield
An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www .rowman .com
86-90 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NE, United Kingdom
Copyright © 2022 by Susan R. Carroll and David J. Carroll
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems,
without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote
passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Carroll, Susan Rovezzi, author. | Carroll, David J., 1953– author.
Title: Statistics made simple for school leaders : a new approach for using student, staff,
and community data / Susan R. Carroll, David J. Carroll.
Description: 3rd edition. | Lanham, Maryland : Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group,
2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “This book is a
practical handbook for school leaders who want to use data to help understand their
students, their staff and their communities, day to day”—Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021042828 (print) | LCCN 2021042829 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781475863208 (cloth) | ISBN 9781475863215 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781475863222 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Educational statistics. | School management and
organization—United States.
Classification: LCC LB2846 .C33 2022 (print) | LCC LB2846 (ebook) |
DDC 371.200973—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021042828
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021042829
∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
To Ruth Carroll DeJohn
To parents who tell their children that they liked math.
To teachers who tell their students that math is fun, and show them why.

Contents
Introduction ix
1 Statistics: A Powerful Tool for School Leaders 1
2 Measurement: The Foundation of Data Literacy 7
3 Data: Steps in Management 17
4 Graphs: A Story with Data 25
5 Descriptive Statistics: Great Communication Tools 33
6 Variability: Partner of the Mean 41
7 Sampling: An Overlooked Management Tool 55
8 Hypotheses: Testing Assumptions 65
9 The t-test: Comparing Two Groups 75
10 ANOVA: Comparing Three or More Groups 85
11 Chi-Square Analyses: Comparing Categories 95
12 Correlations: Relationships with Two Variables 101
13 Regression: Predicting and Explaining Relationships 111
14 Reporting Data: Information Is Power 119
Appendix A: The School Report Card 125
Index 127
About the Authors 129
vii

Introduction
School leaders come in many forms—superintendents, principals and other
building leaders, department heads, Board of Education members, heads of
the Parent-Teacher organization, the teachers’ union representatives, the state
and federal agency heads, and others. As leaders they are expected to make
wise, expeditious, and knowledgeable decisions. It is not acceptable to specu-
late and base decisions on qualitative input. Hard data is regarded as elemen-
tary to a school leader’s toolbox.
This book serves as a handbook for school leaders. With this book, they
can confidently and successfully execute data-based decisions to the benefit
of their schools, students, staff and community.
Chapter 1 presents the case for why statistics are powerful tools for school
leaders. The benefits of using statistics in school settings are advanced along
with the practical purposes they offer. Next, chapter 2 describes the basic ele-
ment of statistics, measurement. While this concept is often misunderstood,
it is critical to distinguish among the four types of measurement so that the
information from the data is valid, reliable and actionable.
Chapter 3 discusses the steps needed to manage data sets. Oftentimes,
the steps are bypassed allowing for errors and misinformation to emerge
from data sets. Taking the time to develop frequency distributions and, more
importantly, examining them in detail are some of the most valuable steps in
data management.
Chapters 4 presents the skill of graphing so that school leaders can tell their
stories. Correctly setting up graphs is instructed in this chapter along with
some mistakes to avoid. Graphing can be an asset in the ability of school lead-
ers to communicate to multiple audiences in a simple, informative manner.
Chapter 5 begins the statistics presentation with descriptive statistics.
The mean, median and mode are used often in everyday school life. This
ix