“But I don’t want to be Godly. I just want to be good.”
― Caradog Prichard, One Moonlit Night

I’ve got a couple of pet peeves, which probably won’t surprise anybody who has been reading me for more than five minutes.

One is when somebody tells me to “just follow the science.”

The other is an overreliance on data—as if gathering enough numbers can eliminate uncertainty, explain every human being, and relieve the people in charge of having to exercise judgment.

Whenever I hear either phrase, I get suspicious.

That doesn’t mean I am anti-science. It doesn’t mean I don’t believe in data. It means I understand both well enough to know that neither was designed to end a conversation.

Science is supposed to begin one.

In some ways, science has morphed into a new religion. People sign up for the rhetoric, memorize a few approved proclamations, and then treat any question as heresy. “Follow the science” becomes less an invitation to examine evidence than a command to accept the speaker’s preferred conclusion.

But science, at its root, is about questioning. It is never static. It is a continuing process of observation, testing, revision, and occasionally discovering that something everybody knew with absolute certainty was not quite true.

When you refuse to acknowledge any possible variance in currently accepted conclusions, you are not defending science. You are denying its basic premise.

I’ve also been alive long enough to realize that not everything can be fully explained by science. Despite our best efforts, magic still lives in the world. That might be an unpopular belief, but if we ever sat down for lunch, I would defend it robustly. I mean those parts of being human that resist measurement: a song transporting you to another decade, the connection between parent and child, or a teacher sensing something is wrong before any spreadsheet confirms it.

For me, I don’t want to live in a world where all the magic has been eradicated.

Fortunately, we are nowhere close.

The Most Complicated Thing We Know

Take a look at the human brain.

Science has a strong map of the brain’s parts, a growing understanding of its circuits, and only a preliminary theory of how those circuits become a person. We know enough to accomplish remarkable things, but not enough to reliably read thoughts, erase trauma, cure most degenerative diseases, or explain consciousness.

But we still cannot fully explain how billions of neurons become a mother, a musician, a bully, a poet, a quarterback, or a seventh-grader determined to test every adult in the building. Still a lot to figure out. That uncertainty is not evidence science has failed. It is why science matters.

Data carries the same problem. It can illuminate part of a picture, but an overreliance on it often keeps us from seeing the whole thing.

Madden Is Not the Game

The other day, I was listening to a couple of young sports-talk radio hosts discuss how they learned about the football players of their generation.

They learned through the Madden video game.

Madden lists players and their skill sets. It assigns an overall rating, then breaks a player down into categories like speed, strength, awareness, agility, throwing power, and tackling. Those ratings are useful for playing the game, and they can be a good starting point for learning about players.

The fallacy comes when you decide the statistics truly define the player. Some players are better than their Madden ratings. Others seem unable to earn theirs when the real game is on the line. A player can possess every measurable tool and still fail to recognize what is happening in front of him.

My son, a high school quarterback, often talks about the difference between straight-line speed and football speed. The two are very different. Plenty of people can run a great 40-yard dash but somehow look slow on the field. They hesitate, take a poor angle, or need too much time to process what they see.

Football coaches quickly recognize the difference.

They understand that a number without context is only a number.

The same holds true when looking at student data. Test scores, attendance rates, discipline reports, grades, and growth measures can all provide insight. None should be treated as the be-all and end-all.

Like those coaches, teachers are best positioned to interpret what the data means. If you spend all day with a child, you develop context. You know whether a score reflects ability, anxiety, hunger, exhaustion, growth, boredom, or a rough morning at home.

That knowledge is not a rejection of data. It is what makes data useful.

Unfortunately, both science and data are routinely manipulated to serve unrelated goals—goals that do not necessarily benefit children.

The TCAP Sausage Factory

This week, I watched the Metro Nashville Public Schools board meeting, an endeavor I would not recommend to anyone without access to strong coffee and a high tolerance for self-congratulation.

At this particular meeting, the board and Director of Schools Adrienne Battle reviewed TCAP data while practically breaking their elbows patting themselves on the back.

According to the presentation, the results were incredible—testimony that district leaders and Central Office employees were clearly the smartest people in any room. Sure, they tossed a few bones toward teachers and students, but the unmistakable message was that success flowed from district leadership: high-quality instructional materials, accountability, teacher coaching, and centrally designed strategies.

Apparently, all those teachers with 15 or 20 years in the classroom just didn’t know how to teach before Battle and company arrived.

After a fair amount of this glaze, board member TK Fayne asked which district programs and strategies were producing the tremendous growth numbers. Board member Zach Young also attempted to dig deeper into the trends.

Executive Officer of Teaching and Learning David Williams came to the podium and offered insight into how the TCAP sausage gets made. It was one of the most refreshing answers I have heard on the board floor in a long time.

I’m paraphrasing Williams here, and you can watch the tape for yourself, but his explanation was basically this: While the tests are always based on state standards, they do not measure every standard, nor do they necessarily assign the same weight to a measured standard every year. One year may emphasize a particular group of standards, while the next test may emphasize others.

Teachers from across the state participate in a process that helps determine which standards should be measured and the value assigned to them. The standards, number of questions, and point values can all change. That is a fair number of variables.

Many parents assume state standardized testing mirrors the tests they remember from school: a set number of questions, each worth the same amount. Get nine out of ten correct, earn an A.

That is not quite how this works.

And the people most affected rarely get to examine the test meaningfully. Teachers and students do not receive a normal marked-up test showing what was missed and where understanding could improve. Yet its results label children, teachers, schools, and communities.

We are expected to trust the process, applaud the numbers, and keep moving.

That is not transparency. It is a canard with massive consequences.

MNPS has a budget exceeding a billion dollars. How is that budget justified?

Dr. Battle earns roughly $400,000 a year, while members of her cabinet receive salaries well into six figures. How are those salaries justified?

Increasingly, the answer is data. Leaders choose the programs, interpret the results, and cite those results as proof that their leadership deserves continued investment. Nobody mentions the variables behind the number on the slide.

Twenty Minutes of Science

At the same meeting, board members continued risking repetitive-motion injuries from back-patting over their decision to “follow the science” and move school start times later—by 20 minutes.

The science may show that later start times can benefit adolescents. I do not recall seeing research establishing that a 20-minute change delivers the promised academic, physical, and emotional benefits. For elementary students, the shift is only 10 minutes.

Ten minutes is barely enough time for a kid to find his other shoe.

You know who clearly benefits from the later start time?

Mayor Freddie O’Connell, who is running for reelection.

Later school start times were a campaign promise. MNPS has now given the mayor the ability to mark it as a success. Box checked.

Listen to the mayor on the campaign trail and you will hear repeated references to “following the science” and doing what is best for children. He will mention the change in school start times, but he seldom emphasizes that the change amounted to only 20 minutes.

How many students went to bed earlier because they knew they had an extra 20 minutes the next morning?

How many will jump from C students to A students because of the delayed start?

Don’t worry about that second question, Mayor. I’m confident MNPS will eventually produce data showing a correlation.

Whether 20 minutes genuinely improves students’ lives is a scientific question. Whether it satisfies a campaign promise is a political one. Those are not the same question.

If You Don’t Record It, It Didn’t Happen

The board also discussed a dramatic decrease in “exclusionary discipline.”

The district defines exclusionary discipline as a response that removes a child from the classroom. Data compiled by MNPS shows those incidents declined 55 percent when comparing the 2025–26 school year with 2022–23. During the same period, MNPS reports that the number of individual students receiving exclusionary discipline decreased 46 percent.

Those are impressive numbers.

They may even be accurate descriptions of what the district recorded.

That does not necessarily make them an accurate description of what happened inside schools.

Some people have questioned those figures, myself included. District leaders may deny manipulating discipline data, but principals receive repeated messages urging them to reduce suspensions, especially the disproportionate suspension of students of color.

Addressing racial disparities is necessary. But if the pressure becomes “make the number go down,” people learn how to lower it whether student behavior improves or not. The directive need not say, “Do not suspend students.” A principal who wants to remain in charge understands what is being communicated.

Fox 17 News asked Professional Educators of Tennessee Executive Director JC Bowman about the practice encouraged under Battle’s leadership. He said the concern is widespread.

“We hear it everywhere in Tennessee, yes, and we specifically hear it from Metro Nashville Public Schools,” Bowman said.

Bowman said MNPS educators have told him they feel discouraged from repeatedly referring disruptive students to administrators.

“It’s good teachers who love working in Metro school system, and they’re coming up saying, ‘Man, I can send a kid to the office five times, I’m being told quit sending them,’” Bowman said.

If a student is sent to the office five times and the teacher is told to stop sending him, the data may show fewer office referrals.

The classroom does not necessarily become safer, calmer, or more conducive to learning.

Again, overreliance on data produces an inaccurate picture. The number becomes the goal rather than a measure of progress toward the goal.

The Data and the Child

The irony was difficult to miss.

Even as Dr. Battle and the board applauded the discipline data and praised the decrease in exclusionary discipline, a student and her father appeared during public comment to plead for the reversal of her expulsion.

Antioch High School freshman Lilith Pipkin was removed in January after reporting a threatening bathroom note involving a gun. MNPS maintains that she wrote the note. Her family says independent handwriting and forensic analysis supports their claim that she did not.

Forensic handwriting analysis is not infallible and should not be treated like DNA. But contrary expert analysis should not be brushed aside when the punishment is this severe.

This case continues to baffle me.

At some point, the board must ask how much refusing to reverse the expulsion protects the community—and how much is driven by an inability to admit the district might be wrong.

Every time this student and her father return to defend her, my conclusion shifts further toward the latter.

Not a good look.

Data is supposed to help adults make better decisions about children. It should never become armor that protects adults from reconsidering a decision about a child.

Science requires the possibility of revision. Justice should too.

Believe the Teacher—or Stop Giving Out Awards

The best moment of the meeting came when an award-winning teacher appeared during public comment and called bull shit on distict leadership.

Samira Hardcastle taught art at John F. Kennedy Middle School in Antioch. During the past school year, she was named Teacher of the Year at her school and was also recognized as a Blue Ribbon Teacher of the Year by the district.

Hardcastle recently resigned, citing discipline problems and a lack of district support.

You can choose whether to believe her. But if the district is going to keep handing out awards, then those awards ought to mean something.

If MNPS declares that a teacher represents excellence, leaders cannot suddenly treat her observations as uninformed when they become uncomfortable.

You cannot hold teachers up as experts when they validate your narrative and dismiss them as disgruntled employees when they challenge it.

Hardcastle spent her days inside the school. She saw the students, the behavior, the consequences, and the effect of policy on the classroom. Her account contains something no district dashboard can provide: context.

I believe her.

That does not mean every anecdote overrides every dataset. It means the people closest to the work must help interpret the numbers. Teachers can tell us whether the data reflects reality.

Follow the Questions

I am not arguing that MNPS should abandon testing, ignore discipline disparities, reverse every expulsion, or set school schedules based on my personal preference.

I am arguing for humility.

Science is powerful because it leaves room for the next question. Data is valuable because it gives us a place to begin investigating. Neither is a sacred text, and neither should be used as a substitute for experience, judgment, transparency, or basic common sense.

Madden ratings are not football players.

TCAP scores are not children.

Discipline totals are not school climate.

A 20-minute schedule change is not proof that a city transformed adolescent health.

And a slide deck filled with upward-pointing arrows is not proof that the people presenting it are responsible for everything that went right.

There is still a lot we do not know—about the brain, about learning, about human behavior, and about the individual child sitting in the third row trying to make it through the day.

That uncertainty should make us curious. It should make us listen more carefully to teachers, students, and families. It should make powerful people more willing to reconsider their conclusions.

Instead, “follow the science” and “look at the data” too often mean, “Stop asking questions. We have already decided what this means.”

No thanks.

I’ll follow the evidence. I’ll examine the data. I’ll listen to the experts. I’ll also reserve the right to ask who selected the measurements, who interpreted the results, who benefits from the conclusion, and what important pieces never made it onto the spreadsheet.

That is not rejecting science.

That is following it.

And I’ll leave a little room for magic too.

Nobody reads it, everybody quotes it.

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Categories: Education