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Andrew Coban··1 min read

Adjectives Aren't Evidence

"Ongoing." "Robust." "Significant growth." Those are the words you write when the proof lives somewhere else.

Ongoing. Robust. In progress. Significant growth. Fully implemented.

That's a district progress report, and none of it is dishonest. It's what you write when the evidence lives somewhere else: a PDF on a principal's desktop, a coaching log in a shared folder, a training agenda in someone's sent mail.

A board member asks what "robust" means for the literacy initiative. Getting an answer takes a follow-up email and nine days. Multiply that by twenty strategies.

Consider what an adjective does in a progress column. It asks the reader to accept a judgment without showing the basis for it. "In progress" tells a board nothing about whether to worry, and deciding where to worry is most of a board's job.

Attach the artifact and the adjective becomes unnecessary. The walkthrough schedule. The October board presentation. The intervention roster with names removed. A photo of the new library on opening day. None of that requires a writer. It only requires a place to put it.

Evidence protects you, too. "Robust" invites a board member to test the word against his own definition. A coaching log with dates on it does not.

Adjectives ask a board to take your word for it, but evidence doesn't have to ask.