One of the most vexing problems in American education is the achievement gap. Schools and districts are tackling the problem in different ways and seeing results. The first step in dealing with the achievement gap is acknowledging that the problem exists. Yet not all districts break down student performance data to show how various racial and ethnic groups perform.
Based on research conducted by the California P-16 Council, the CDE and other partners involved in this project, specific recommendations have been proposed to address the achievement gap among student subgroups. <br>Note Recommendation #11: Design, develop, and implement coherent and relevant professional development in the areas of data collection, analysis and interpretation<br>
This book [by Ruth S Johnston] is a step by step recipe book for using data in your schools. It answers the who, what, when, where, and how. The book is not a complicated read and it is an excellent book for a book study with the entire staff.This book will help staffs to understand how data can help to improve the climate and culture in a school, instruction and the academic outcome of all students.
This Web site is designed to give educators—and others involved in using data in a classroom, school, or district—a variety of places to find resources, tools, and action steps to foster school improvement.
Link student assessments with instruction. A one-stop web-based location to review data management systems based on approved criteria.
The following handouts specifially cover data topics from the 2008 AASA Conference:
10 Research-Based Principles to Guide Classroom Practice. You can also download a free poster on the 10 principles from this site.
You must teach vocabulary if you expect students to use it.
With over 420,000 students and more than 600 schools, Chicago Public Schools finds itself in all three stages of data-driven decision making at once: collection, analysis, and action. The master data warehouse is nearly complete and will be rolled out in fall 2007 along with systems for specialized services management, curriculum instruction, and student information. Analysis is handled by the Office of Research and Analysis and published on a dedicated research Web site (http://research.cps.k12.il.us). The Principals Technology Leadership Institute (PTLI) is training principals in the art and science of using data for decision-making within their schools.
There is a significant difference between differentiated instruction and differentiated curriculum. Tracking is dedicated to the later. Differentiated instruction is not just clustering all students with similar learning needs into one group and providing them with different curriculum, but rather it requires giving students who are struggling to learn the essentials more time, more support, and new learning experiences with different strategies and different structures such as small-group instruction and individual tutoring.
Did your students' test scores rise last year? If you're like many of our Principal Files team members, you've witnessed an increase in scores over the past several years. Seldom is it by chance that those scores have risen; it's the result of a concerted effort by an entire staff -- an effort that is very likely to include extensive data analysis, focused teacher training, frequent monitoring of student progress, practice testing throughout the year, student and staff incentives, and other strategies.
Social networks and digital media are making it easy for us to share our lives not just with our small circle of friends, but the entire world. With the invention of YouTube, Facebook and MySpace, we are creating a massive digital archive of our lives.
The benefit of such a digital archive is that we no longer have to rely just on remembering memorable events: There are video and photos of it online. Besides just video and photos, there's also a massive text archive we are establishing with personal blogs. Every column I write for the Courier & Press is obviously archived for the history books, but so are the things that I write online.