Data Driven Decisions

[Tim Phillips]

How is your school and district using student and teacher data to make decisions to improve student and teacher performance?

Is the data being used by the classroom teacher? How?

Is the data being used by the administration? How?

[Fred Sharpsteen]

We are at the early stages of 3D Data, Driven, Decisions but are at a point of early traction in other words I think we are about to take off on a new exciting journey. We have several assessment tools, a short list of them are Scrantron Performance Series, Renaissance Learning places suite of AR Reading, AR Math, Star Reading and Star Math. We also do AIMS Math and Dibels in Elementary school. As a district we have purchase the Exam View Learning series and we use these questions with the CPS - Einstruction clicker for common assessments. We also are just starting MiBLiSi year one this will bring in student discipline. We look at a Database warehouse a few years back but felt we didn't know what the real question that we wanted to answered yet. So we have also been working on getting us to a position of knowing the question so we can look at how best to answer this question. Gathering data in mass quantity is not the answer.

[Fred Sharpsteen]

Question 2
Data is done by a person in each building and then deseminated to each teacher. This model has worked well for us and the teachers are starting to use this to help strugeling students and to help drive curriculm. Administrators are not using it nearly as much as staff.

[Luyen]

Hey there. I am the chief product officer of SchoolNet, which develops data-driven decision making software for school districts. As a result, I spend a lot of time visiting districts (most large urbans) and finding out what they are doing with D3M. From my perspective, most districts have adopted some form of technology-supported benchmark assessment system. Most are deploying district-wide benchmarks with teacher and admin access to aggregate and student-level reports. Many districts have also deployed more classroom-focused formative assessment tools (like AIMSweb, mClass, etc.) At the district level, there is a big drive towards performance management dashboards linked to school, district, and even teacher report cards. The report cards are summative (just like student report cards) and typically draw on both instructional data (e.g. state standardized tests) and operational data (e.g. parent surveys, financial data). These districts wish to provide "leading indicators" to support the "lagging indicators" - hence the interest in dashboards that are predictive of performance on the final report cards. In these instances, benchmark assessment data is typically aggregated as a "proxy" for summative state standardized test data that will be used in the report cards.

In general, I see two big trends - the push for generating actionable classroom-level data for teachers from lighter-weight, more informal assessments (including observations, portfolios, performances, etc.) and the push for district-level data aggregation in meaningful dashboards.

I am attaching a study done by USC on how the School District of Philadelphia has successfully designed instructional management around benchmark assessments using SchoolNet's Instructional Management Suite. They are also implementing school and district report cards and a data dashboard (using SchoolNet).

[Kristina Cunningham]

I just came out of New Haven, Connecticut. The New Haven district has launched some massive programs to get teachers and staff using and comparing data. Every year the district targets content strands that are weak for each grade level across the districts and works with school leadership to develop school wide strategies to target those strands. Each subject area has an annual Pre and Post test as well as quarterly assessments based on targetted content strands.

Using data collected from these tests, teachers are expected to maintain a data wall and use this to inform instruction and motivate students (which works as well as the teacher knows data, unfortunately). Teachers then have individual control over how they obtain and use additional data from other assessments in the classroom.

Teacher teams and departments are expected to hold a weekly Data Team Meeting with an administrator present to go over data for either "Safe Harbor" students (students that may or may not be Proficient on the state test at the end of the year). Data Team effectiveness varies from school to school, but in my grade level subjects would rotate. As the state test neared, we focused on target students that could be moved quickly into a higher score range.

At the end of the year, the district requires every school submit a presentation to the district data fair. Every teacher is required to attend and take notes on this fair. This provides a great opportunity for teachers to learn from the data of other district schools, especially those with similar demographics. However, the pitfall is it pulls teachers from the classroom and students learn valuable learning time.

Another aspect of data management in this district is to call in an outside consultant to work with struggling schools quarterly. They go over data and student work with teachers in "core" subjects to provide feedback and suggestions for improved instructional techniques. They also help to identify students with the most potential for growth and create classroom groups. This is an excellent idea, but teachers normally must rush at the last minute to build a presentation for this group and it can be very intimidating, especially with all of the different ways the district asks for data. Again, it pulls teachers from the classroom too often because of scheduling issues. When this process goes smoothly, it provides an excellent set of resources to teachers and administrators that affect positive student outcomes.

All in all, New Haven is moving in a good direction for its students (especially in accountability), but may need to streamline its data collection and distribution process to make it more effective. It adopted Schoolnet at the end of last year, and my guess is that this has helped this process considerably as assessment data is more readily accessible and groups can be created digitally based on the data. I think the tool may bring all the pieces of New Haven's data process together nicely.

-Kristina Cunningham

[Luyen]

Funny Kristina, New Haven is actually one of our SchoolNet districts. We implemented an instructional management system there a year ago, and they have been pretty aggressive about training and embedding the program throughout the district. We are now looking at addressing their formative assessment needs and their advanced analysis and reporting needs. Keep an eye on New Haven!

[Kristina Cunningham]

That's good to hear! The formative assessment I gave annually needed some adjustment for reliability and validity. For SchoolNet, I know I had one formal training at the end of the year and was saddened that I didn't have access to the system for both years of my TFA commitment because it really takes some of the load out of working with data. As I said, I really think that program is going to help tie together the data management in New Haven and I'm glad teachers will have access to it.