The second of Jim Collins’ key principles for achieving greatness is ‘calibrating success using metrics’ – in our case, educational metrics.

This should not be understood as a distraction leading us down a path of preoccupation with testing student achievement and organisational compliance.

Rather, it is a common-sense principle reminding us of the importance of naming our intentions, identifying our tasks and deciding on key indicators of achievement. It provides us with powerful instruments for moving forward together.

We are familiar with the various applications of educational metrics to student learning. Effective teachers describe desired outcomes, they develop or adopt graded descriptions of standards to be achieved, they measure achievement, and they have clear indicators of what their students have learnt.

The same basic processes apply to such learning organisations as the CEO and the individual school.

We all need to apply metrics, in an intelligent manner, to our own performance.

What is our overall purpose? As an organisation, what are we focusing on at the present time (eg communication, leadership team development, learning agenda)? How far are we along the road that takes us to our goals?

Finding the answer to this last question requires us to develop clear indicators of achievement and to use these in moving our learning communities from good to great.

Bringing organisational and educational metrics into service of our mission is a challenge we must face together. Here is something we will use to our advantage.

What is our current understanding of the term educational metrics? What questions do we have about it?