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Applying the Iceberg Model An insider's view into the people and

to School Performance
programs of New Visions for Public Schools.
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SEPTEMBER 10, 2013 | BY Susan Fairchild LogIn Tweet 2 district and charter schools.

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The iceberg is a metaphor often used to show that there is more leverage in changing the In The News
mental models that inform the design or structure of a system (see interactive figure below).
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The visible ten percent of the iceberg (events or outcomes) is the product of a systems
behavior. The most effective way to alter outcomes or change events is by understanding the New York City
90 percent of the iceberg hidden from view. News & Announcements
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Patterns Would you like to leave a comment or

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Structures

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Events NewVisionsPubSchools 6h
@NewVisionsNYC

In the language of "stocks and flows," events are stocks or system conditions that we often 51 #edtech tools for your #classroom:
edut.to/1UiyR4I #backtoschool
seek to improve. Because they exist at a point in time, we can usually see them. They are
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strong signals.
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But when we intervene at or very close to an event, we are intervening at a place within the NewVisionsPubSchools 8h
system that has the least leverage. Take, for example, the high proportion of New York City @NewVisionsNYC
high school graduates who enter CUNY schools and who require remediation in literacy and #NYC #Teachers: Master the #5E instructional model
math. The Center for the Urban Future (http://nycfuture.org/) calculated that 74 percent of w/ our #Free #PD course:
newvisions.org/pages/teacher #NYed #STEM
incoming students place into remediation, and roughly one-third fail the math and writing
#NYEdChat
proficiency exams. All of which suggests that the interventions that weve put into place to
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help students graduate from high school do not sufficiently deepen the skill sets students need
to be successful in college. Scott Gargan 2 Sep
@ScottGarg

Patterns Tweet to @NewVisionsNYC

Just below the waterline of our iceberg lie patterns of recurring events; of the invisible iceberg
they are the easiest to expose. Events occur over time and thus are by definition "flows."
Flows are activities that change the level of stocks. Longitudinal data, behavior-over-time
graphs, and stock-and-flow maps are forms of data that tell us something important about a
systems behavior such as its stability or volatility at certain moments. Patterns help us
determine whether growth is sustainable or when our growth potential is nearing its ceiling.
These types of data allow us to forecast or anticipate future events and to shed light on
whether or not our interventions altered outcomes.

Leveraging the full potential of patterns, however, requires us to look more deeply into the
composition of our stocks (what are they made of?) and do more than simply reorder them into
a longitudinal configuration. (See my colleague Brad's recent post (/blog/entry/some-thoughts-
on-stocks-flows-tangles) for some thoughts on the importance of "flow.")

Exploiting patterns requires different data and a different mindset (and not always a statistical
one). Take Hemingway for example. He was a master at using patterns to help expose the
structure of a story. Hemingway wrote as if the reader was in the moment (or the flow). He
used his multi-focal camera eye to capture a rapid succession of images from multiple
vantages that, when strung together, creates what Zoe Todd refers to as a continuous
present. Todd suggests that Hemingway used words to create images. He then juxtaposed
those images to evoke a motion picture-like effect. Hemingway transformed text into
something more akin to a movie, imbuing his novels with motion and rapid movement that
zoomed in and out.

How is this relevant to our job as researchers? As our access to data increases (both in terms of
quantity and in terms of type), we are able to create more of a movie-like continuous
present. By combining:

1. more granular data (marking period data, homework completion, period level
attendance)
2. traditional stocks of student performance data (credit accumulation, Regents exam
pass rates, diploma type)
3. new types of data (granular school-level attributes)

we have the potential to create a stream of data images and correlations that frame a
phenomenon from different vantage points. That is, combining data in manifold ways allows us
to examine a school from multiple angles and begins to reveal the whole rather than isolated
parts.

Structure

Think of the parable of the seven blind mice. When the mice approach the elephant
individually, they perceive only a part. When you understand that youve got an elephant in
front of you, and not a fan, or a tree, or a snake, youre in the position to make coherent,
appropriate and strategic decisions about what to do next.
As I noted in a previous post (/blog/entry/3-problems-with-traditional-early-warning-systems-
for-students), we approach system redesign from what we want to happen (for example, having
a clear vision of the attributes of a high performing school) not just what we do not want to see
happen (i.e., identifying an attendance problem and redesigning only to eliminate that one
problem.)

A wonderful example of system redesign can be found in the book and movie Moneyball
(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1210166/) (also referenced by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger and
Kenneth Cukier, authors of Big Data (http://www.amazon.com/Big-Data-Revolution-Transform-
Think/dp/0544002695/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1378826554&sr=8-1&keywords=big+data)).
Billy Beane, the general manager for the resource-poor Oakland As, understood that trying to
solve problems (such as losing star players and needing to replace them) the same way that the
resource-rich New York Yankees would, was not feasible. Beane understood that you had to
radically redesign the team using an entirely different set of data points and analytic methods.
With the right data points, from multiple different angles, and a different mindset, he redefined
how baseball teams are designed.

Mental Models

Billy Beane used data and a radically new theory to challenge baseball insiders assumptions
about how to craft a winning team. At the base of the iceberg are our mental models or
assumptions that drive the way we design or connect the elements of the system. Jay
Forrester, a leading systems thinker, says this of mental models: "The image of the world
around us, which we carry in our head, is just a model. Nobody in his head imagines all the
world, government or country. He has only selected concepts, and relationships between them,
and uses those to represent the real system." Mental models are challenged when we test
them.

Simulations are one way of testing our assumptions or playing out a scenario. An excellent
example of a team leveraging simulations is Climate Interactive (http://climateinteractive.org/).
This group specializes in environmental issues and has developed multiple simulation tools for
policy analysis and scenario testing.

For example, they have created a simulation that examines drought and displacement
scenarios. The simulation encourages users to play out different scenarios by manipulating key
variables such as international assistance, rainfall and land quality. Right off the bat I can
imagine how principals and school leaders would be able to use a programming and scheduling
simulator to test different scheduling scenarios for student and school level needs.

Well conducted, rigorous program evaluations will also continue to serve as an important
mechanism for challenging assumptions and theories of change. Carol Weiss, author of
Evaluation (http://www.amazon.com/Evaluation-Methods-Studying-Programs-
Policies/dp/0133097250), says evaluation findings often have significant influence; they
provide new concepts and angles of vision, new ways of making sense of events, new possible
directions. They puncture old myths.

Implications

Knowing where we are relative to this iceberg model has important implications for how we
use data and the anticipated impact of our interventions. New Visions data work can be
mapped against this model. Each phase of our work is important and iterative. In the next post
I'll outline New Visions data trajectory.

Susan Fairchild is director of program analysis and applied research at New Visions. Follow her
on Twitter at @SKFchild.

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