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Bring Data

6/15/2005

By Kenneth C. Green

Campus investments in IT play a critical role in the new world order of assessment and outcome mandates.

In discussing the Bush Administration’s efforts at education assessment and reform at the annual meeting of the American Council on Education last February, newly appointed Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings told the assembled college presidents, “In God we trust; all others bring data.”

Eleven days later, Spellings, a former senior advisor to then-Texas governor George W. Bush, even personalized the statement when speaking at the annual convention of the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP; www.nassp.org): “Back in Texas,” she said, “we like to joke: In God we trust; all others bring data!”

It’s a line that Spellings used a number of times during her inaugural tour following her January 2005 investiture as the nation’s senior education official. Public records (the transcripts of her prepared remarks released by the Department of Education, or news reports filed after her conference presentations and meetings) reveal the Secretary used the “bring data” admonition with several groups, including the Council for American Private Education (www.capenet.org), the American Association of Community Colleges (www.aacc.nche.edu), the National Association of Secondary School Principals, and the Maryland Governor’s Commission on Quality Education (www.gov.state.md.us).

The ‘bring data’ mandate means…that we must make the transition from epiphany to evidence in our conversations about the impact of IT.

Give Sec. Spellings (characterized in some news reports as a “self-described education hawk”) credit for successfully encapsulating the key theme of the Bush Administration’s education program into a tightly crafted (and yes, somewhat disarming) message about educational accountability, assessment, and reform: “In God we trust; all others bring data!” The statement is sharp, clear, and compelling; moreover, it seems original. Bring data! Well, it is sharp and clear, but it is not original. A Google search of the phrase reveals that the quip, “In God We Trust; all others bring data!” originates with W. Edwards Deming, the American quality guru whose work on statistical quality control had a profound impact on manufacturing in the United States during the Second World War, and later, the Japanese economy. (The Japanese government created the Deming Prize to honor the impact of Deming’s work on the post-World War II Japanese economy.) Indeed, a Google search on the phrase, “all others bring data” yields more than 1,400 references, most citing Deming (not Spellings).

Perhaps we should forgive Spellings for failing to reference Deming in her comments. Maybe it was faulty staff work; someone in the Secretary’s office forgot to do a quick Google search before locking down the text of her prepared comments for her Inaugural Tour. (The Bushies seem to have some problems with reliable research.)