Education Leaders, K-Pop and Numbers
By Cherish Bernandino
A private school director was
asked by his Central Office Supervisor
“Mr. School Director what are your
strategies to retain the number of old
students and gain new students on
target?” the director replied “ Sir, we
hope that by the end of…”the Supervisor
cut him “ Hey Sir, please don’t hope, we
don’t hope in our system. Hope cannot
be translated in numeric so we don’t
deal with hope. I’m asking you numbers
so please tell me numbers” there was a
brief silence in the air as everyone who
are next to be called to report were
momentarily hit by fearsome chills.
A school head who merely
verbalizes values and virtues and
directions and objectives of the school
are doomed to leadership big fail if he is
not guided by numbers or data. One
cannot just be claiming that “there is a
growing decadence among students due
to Knobela and k-pop” and therefore
there is a need to ask parents to prohibit
their kids from anything with kpop and
knobela. Because the line of logic is
unthinkable because only those
probable can be thinkable. To say
knobela and kpop are bad is simply not
probable because this claim is not
supported by data. Thus, the measures
against them would just be a waste of
time.
Why not just use the knobela and
kpop music as subject matter of analysis
in class or use them as part of a class
project? That would be more logical
because as the golden rule in pedagogy
says:” if your students do not learn by
the way you teach, you have teach them
in the way they learn”.
This is the reason why
recently, teachers received
virtual training on how to use Mobile
Legends (ML) as teaching tool.This is
LoL ! because everyone used to despise
ML as an addictive game that it takes
the valuable time for study and
everything and now it has become a
medium of learning.
Our decisions must be guided by
facts. Facts are derived from data. Data
are culled from statistical counts.
Statistical counts are from raw numbers.
Raw numbers could be scores and
ratings. School systems are not new in
numbers, we learn numbers from
school. schools are repository of
enormous amount of statistical facts
year in year out of plethora of its
activities and concerns such as student
scores in exams, attendance tallies,
incidences of disciplinary concerns,
causes of tardiness and absences,
school finances, etc.
Successful school leaders use
data, including standardized and school-
based assessments, to drive continuous
improvement through site-based
decision-making for the express purpose
of promoting equitable and culturally
responsive opportunities for all students.
The opportunities that data present are
many and the most effective leaders are
able to leverage that data to make
strategic decisions to benefit their
students.
A report from the Wallace
Foundation asserts that: “When it comes
to data, effective principals try to draw courses and fire teachers, a little more
the most from statistics and evidence, later it had to totally close that only the
having ‘learned to ask useful questions’ statues of its saints remained. See how
of the information, to display it in ways numbers can build or destroy the school
that tell ‘compelling stories’ and to use it by not basing its decisions on numbers.
to promote ‘collaborative inquiry among
teachers.’ They view data as a means
not only to pinpoint problems but to
understand their nature and causes.”

Admit it or not, numbers speak

more compelling polemics than any
good Shakespearean play. Data are
compelling because they partake the
nature of evidence that does not lie.

The use of data resources could

also eliminate irregularities and
organizational conflicts such as teacher
promotion and ranking if the same are
based on numeric and not on favoritism,
familiarity, nepotism or just plain good
impression.

Surveys are also reliable bases

for policy determination. One school is
being criticized for having an old-
fashioned school uniform that its own
students despised wearing them on the
daily basis, the student council had
conducted a survey whether or not the
students liked the school uniform, most
students responded in negative but the
school authorities insisted that there is
nothing wrong about the uniform.

The competitor school took

advantage of the situation and
redesigned its school uniform that it
looked like uniform worn by kids in
Korea. The following year, large
number of students from the
conservative school had transferred to
the school with Korean style uniform.
The following years to come, the
conservative school had to close