The Year-One Review: Five Questions That Change Next Year

After a year of using a tool, once the school year ends the question comes naturally: "So, do we keep going next year?" Settling that on mood or momentum is a bad idea. The year-one review is a decision that governs next year's budget and teachers' time. You have to look back honestly, with five questions. A vague impression that it went well and a vague complaint that it wasn't much are equally short on evidence.

Five Questions to Ask in the Review

Answering with data rather than feelings is the heart of it. If you can't answer a question with a number or a concrete example, that area simply hasn't been measured yet.

1. What got better?: Compared with your baseline, which actually changed, scores, time, or participation? Answer with comparable numbers, not a vague "it feels better."
2. Who benefited?: Did only the top students improve, or did struggling students come along too? Check the direction of equity. Look at the distribution hiding behind the average.
3. What was the burden?: Did teacher workload go down or up? What was the biggest friction? If the burden outweighs the benefit, it isn't sustainable.
4. What should we drop?: Prune the features nobody uses and the activities that had no effect. Subtracting is improvement too.
5. What moves to the next stage?: Decide with evidence whether to scale, hold, or retire.

A Process for Turning the Review into Decisions

If the review ends as conversation, next year circles the same spot. It has to lead to decisions and records.

• Collect teacher, student, and parent voices with a short survey. Hear only one side and your judgment tilts.
• Put the data and the voices into a one-page report. Any longer and nobody reads it.
• Choose one of scale, hold, or retire, and record the reason. That record becomes the starting point for whoever comes next.

Continuing takes courage and so does stopping. The only genuinely regrettable choice is dragging something along on momentum with no evidence.

Record Retirement as an Outcome Too

Stopping a tool that isn't working isn't something to be embarrassed about; it's a decision that protects resources.

• State the reason for stopping: Write concretely what fell short of expectations, and leave it as a lesson for the next choice.
• Handle the data: When retiring a tool, migrate or destroy student data safely.
• Reallocate what you free up: Move the budget and time from the stopped tool to somewhere more effective.

Carrying the Review Forward as an Asset

If a year's review ends inside that year, the school starts from a blank page whenever the person in charge changes. A review has to carry forward.

• A cumulative record: Stack the review reports in one folder so several years of movement are visible at a glance. Trends don't show in a single year's data.
• Update the checklist: Add this year's lessons to the checklist for the next adoption.
• Hand over properly: Write down the reasoning behind decisions as well, so the next person can catch up on the context just by reading the review.

Key Takeaways

Adoption isn't complete at the start; it is completed only in the year-one review. Use the five questions to check effect, equity, and burden, and decide with evidence whether to scale, hold, or retire. One honest review can change the direction of the next three years.