Data Use and School Improvement: Challenges and Prospects (original) (raw)
Related papers
Data as a Lever for Improving Instruction and Student Achievement
Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education, 2012
The articles in this issue illuminate the perils and promise of the push to develop large-scale data systems fostered by No Child Left Behind (2001) and expanded recently by the Race to the Top federal education program. As the articles by Marsh (2012, this issue) and Jennings (2012, this issue) attest, data are often touted as being the equivalent of an educational Swiss Army knife-a tool fit for a variety of purposes, including informing student, educator, and school accountability; instructional improvement; school choice; teacher compensation; professional development; school budgeting; and other important functions. The effects of data use depend on the comprehensiveness and validity of the measures used to generate results, their suitability for the purposes being served, the ability of users to make appropriate and valid inferences, and the ability of the system and individuals within it to respond to the results in a timely and effective manner (Jennings, 2012; Marsh, 2012; Supovitz, 2012, this issue). Murnane, City, and Singleton (2008) summarized the multiple challenges districts face to meet these challenges in an article describing the design and use of the MyBPS data system in Boston Public Schools. While citing considerable progress over the course of this effort, Murnane and his colleagues emphasized the time needed to create the right mix of assessments, develop the analytic capabilities of staff (teachers, principals, central office administrators, and so on), and generate the portfolio of tools required to address the needs the data revealed. On this last point, Murnane et al. underscored the difficulty that Boston Public
Using Data to Increase Student Achievement: A Case Study of Success in a Sanctioned School
2011
Your support, friendship, wisdom, laughter, and perspective have made this a wonderful journey. Thank you to the amazing principal and teachers who were willing to allow me to glimpse into their reality; to share with me the ways in which, each day, in large and small ways, they improve the lives of children. Most importantly, thank you to my family, Aaron, Ben, Quinn, and Riley. Your love is my greatest joy. Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to my mother, Florence Berquist, my first teacher, my dearest friend, and the most amazing woman I know. Your unfailing strength in times of hardship has shown me nothing is impossible.
Psychology in The Schools, 2008
This article reports on one ongoing statewide effort to create a high-quality data reporting and utilization system (i.e., High-Performance Learning Community [HiPlaces] Assessment) to inform educational accountability and improvement efforts system. This effort has undergoing refinement for more than a decade. The article describes the features of this system, particularly how empirically based psychological theory and research informed both the development and the overall design of the assessment method. This system, unlike those used by other educational institutions, is unusual in that from the onset of the development and then the implementation, the assessment moved well beyond the simple assessment of the performance and achievement of students to include a comprehensive assessment of all aspects of the developmental, educational, fiscal, and policy conditions that comprise the ecology of the public education system, at all levels, as well as of the developmental and educational needs and attainment of students. The use of data was integral in guiding specific and ongoing, state-, district-, school-, and classroom-level improvement plans and efforts, including the development, monitoring, evaluation, and refinement of the program. The major goal that guided this system is, and always has been, the enhancement of schools and students' lives. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
A TOOL FOR IMPROVED SCHOOL PERFORMANCE
ln the school setup, the use and generation of data is a practice l teachers, principals and other school personnel are familiar with and often carry out without much consideration for their important role in he/ping educationists make informed decisions that positively affect students' outcome. Data is an important instrument in the field of Educational Administration and Planning as a means of establishing outcome and decision making in education. (Anikweze, 1996) With appropriate use of data, a teacher is able to assess what the students' know, what they should know and what can be done to meet their academic needs. (Bernhardt, V 2004) This paper seeks to establish the different kinds of data produced in the school as wells» as explain the way by which such data can be used as necessary tools to achieve improved school performance.
National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, 2009
As educators face increasing pressure from federal, state, and local accountability policies to improve student achievement, the use of data has become more central to how many educators evaluate their practices and monitor students’ academic progress (Knapp et al., 2006). Despite this trend, questions about how educators should use data to make instructional decisions remain mostly unanswered. In response, this guide provides a framework for using student achievement data to support instructional decision making. These decisions include, but are not limited to, how to adapt lessons or assignments in response to students’ needs, alter classroom goals or objectives, or modify student-grouping arrangements. The guide also provides recommendations for creating the organizational and technological conditions that foster effective data use. Each recommendation describes action steps for implementation, as well as suggestions for addressing obstacles that may impedeprogress. In adopting t...