{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,29]],"date-time":"2026-04-29T09:56:34Z","timestamp":1777456594792,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":45,"publisher":"SAGE Publications","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2017,5,16]],"date-time":"2017-05-16T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1494892800000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/page\/policies\/text-and-data-mining-license"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["journals.sagepub.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Big Data &amp; Society"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2017,6]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>Debate over the closure of DeVasco High School shows that data-driven accountability was a methodological and administrative processes that produced both transparency and opacity. Data, when applied to a system of accountability, produced new capabilities and powers, and as such were political. It created second-hand representations of important objects of analysis. Using these representations administrators spoke on behalf of the school, the student and the classroom, without having to rely on the first-person accounts of students, teachers or principals. They empowered one group\u2014central city administrators\u2014over another\u2014teachers and principals. After analyzing the form these policies took, this article concludes that it is necessary to rethink the processes that create visibility and invisibility. Public data obscured the voices, experiences and collective traumas of students and faculty within the school. A narrow focus on activities within the schools rendered invisible the structural decisions made by the Department of Education in New York City\u2014to favor small schools over large, comprehensive ones. In order to create understanding, and a sense of common purpose, those who are spoken for in simplified data must also be given the opportunity to debate the representations of their performance and quality.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/2053951717702408","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2017,5,16]],"date-time":"2017-05-16T06:42:08Z","timestamp":1494916928000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":12,"title":["Data, democracy and school accountability: Controversy over school evaluation in the case of DeVasco High School"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"4","author":[{"given":"John","family":"West","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Planning, Ball State University College of Architecture and Planning, Muncie, IN, USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2017,5,16]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_3_5_2_1","volume-title":"The Technological Economy","author":"Barry A","year":"2005","unstructured":"Barry A (2005) The anti-political economy. 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