Schools have more data than ever.
Test scores. Grades. Attendance. Behavior incidents. Surveys. Intervention data. Learning-platform analytics. Engagement metrics. Evaluations. And now an expanding layer of AI-generated analysis.
All of it exists for good reasons. Schools need to know whether students are learning, whether programs are working, and where support is needed.
But something strange has happened as education has become more data driven.
The people inside schools don’t seem to trust each other more. They seem to trust each other less.
Teachers feel less trusted by leaders. Leaders struggle to establish enough trust to create change. Coaches need teachers to open their classrooms and expose uncertainty, yet teachers can reasonably wonder how that information might eventually be used. Parents question whether schools are meeting their children’s needs. Even students increasingly have reasons to question how teachers know whether work represents their actual understanding.
More data was supposed to give us greater certainty.
Instead, it may be contributing to mistrust.
The problem isn’t data. It’s what the data represents.
Most educational data is a proxy.
A test score represents something about learning. An attendance record represents something about participation. A behavior incident represents something that happened between people. A classroom observation represents a small sample of teaching. A platform metric represents an interaction with software.
Each can be useful.
The problem begins when the proxy becomes more influential than the reality it was intended to represent.
A leader looking at a dashboard may have excellent information and still know very little about what happened between a teacher and students that day.
A policymaker can see achievement data across thousands of students without ever seeing the teaching that produced it.
A parent can see grades and test scores while knowing surprisingly little about how their child thinks, participates, struggles or learns.
A teacher can see a completed assignment without knowing how much of it was actually produced by the student.
The people making decisions increasingly have data about classrooms without having much evidence from classrooms.
That distinction matters.
Everyone fills in what the evidence leaves out
When evidence is incomplete, people naturally interpret it.
A disappointing score might mean instruction was ineffective. Or the assessment may not represent what students understand.
A struggling initiative might mean teachers aren’t implementing it. Or implementation may be colliding with realities leaders can’t see.
A classroom observation might reveal a problem. Or it might capture an unusual ten minutes.
A student’s polished assignment might demonstrate mastery. Or AI may have done much of the thinking.
Without better evidence, each person fills in the missing context from their own perspective.
Teachers believe leaders don’t understand classrooms.
Leaders believe teachers may be resisting necessary change.
Parents wonder whether schools are telling them the whole story.
Students learn that the evidence used to judge their learning doesn’t always represent what they actually know.
Nobody necessarily has bad intentions.
They simply aren’t looking at enough of the same reality.
Relationships used to carry more of this burden
Education has traditionally depended heavily on relationships.
A principal knew their teachers. Teachers knew their students. Parents knew the school. Coaches developed credibility over time.
When information was incomplete, relationships supplied trust.
Relationships still matter enormously.
But they are being asked to carry a burden they increasingly cannot carry alone.
Schools are larger and more complex. Staff turnover disrupts relationships. Leaders are expected to demonstrate measurable improvement. Parents have access to more information and more ways to question institutions. State and district accountability systems demand evidence. AI is making it harder to know whether student work demonstrates actual understanding.
Telling everyone to build stronger relationships doesn’t resolve those pressures.
Trust increasingly needs evidence too.
Mistrust makes change harder
This becomes particularly damaging when schools try to change.
A district adopts new curriculum. Leadership wants instruction to shift. Coaches are asked to support implementation. Teachers encounter problems in classrooms.
What happens next depends heavily on trust.
Do teachers believe leaders understand what implementation actually requires?
Do leaders believe teachers are making a genuine effort?
Can coaches see enough real practice to help?
Can teachers admit what isn’t working without worrying that honesty will be interpreted as failure?
When trust is weak, everyone becomes more defensive.
Leaders ask for more documentation.
Teachers protect their autonomy.
Coaches struggle for access.
Organizations respond by collecting still more data.
And the cycle continues.
What if schools had better evidence of reality?
The answer isn’t to eliminate data.
It’s to fill the evidence gap underneath it.
Imagine if educators routinely created evidence of their own work.
Teachers could revisit what actually happened rather than reconstructing it from memory. Students could be observed explaining and applying what they know. Coaches could work from real examples teachers chose to share. Teams could calibrate around actual practice rather than abstract descriptions of it.
Leaders wouldn’t need access to every recording. Parents wouldn’t need a window into every classroom.
The important change would be that reality existed in the evidence base.
When a proxy raised a question, there would be richer evidence available to understand it.
When educators disagreed, they could sometimes return to what actually happened.
When AI analyzed teaching or learning, it could work from better context.
And when professional judgment mattered, educators would have evidence with which to exercise and explain it.
Trust needs something to stand on
For years, schools have tried to become more data driven.
We don’t think that was a mistake.
But if the data shaping decisions doesn’t adequately represent teaching and learning, collecting more of it won’t necessarily produce greater trust.
It may do the opposite.
The next step may be to create an evidence base that begins much closer to the classroom—and gives educators themselves a meaningful role in creating and governing it.
Because relationships still matter.
Professional judgment still matters.
Data still matters.
But when consequential decisions are being made everywhere, trust increasingly requires shared evidence of reality.