The Data Culture Framework is a high-level guide designed for institutional leaders who want to create and sustain an effective data culture on campus. The Framework offers a set of practices designed to help institutions of higher education create and maintain an effective data-informed community among institutional leaders, faculty, and staff.

Measurement systems give colleges a structure for collecting, sharing, and acting on data. The guidebook and tools presented here help faculty, staff, college leadership, and policymakers understand and use measurement systems--and specifically use data to improve completion rates, close institutional performance gaps, and facilitate economic…

This slide deck is a toolkit to help districts adapt existing school performance frameworks to the current moment or create new ones. These slides identify and walk through the fundamental questions districts need to consider in designing school performance frameworks that acknowledge the challenges that schools and students are facing, as well as…

The UChicago Consortium, Network for College Success, and the To&Through Project's new paper, "Practice-Driven Data: Lessons from Chicago's Approach to Research, Data, and Practice in Education," shares key lessons learned from Chicago's approach to using data to foster ongoing improvement in students' educational attainment. This…

Research shows that chronic absenteeism can affect academic performance in later grades and is a key early warning sign that a student is more likely to drop out of high school. Several states enacted legislation to address this issue, and many states are currently discussing the utility of chronic absenteeism as an indicator of school quality or…

Using data strategically to guide decisions and actions can have a positive effect on education practices and processes. This facilitation guide shows education data teams how to move beyond simply reporting data to applying data to direct strategic action. Using guiding questions, suggested activities, and activity forms, this guide provides…

Students are people--not data. Assessment data can bury you or give you focused information on how to reach every student. "Putting Faces on the Data" shows how to develop a common language for sharing all students' progress with all teachers and leaders and how to use ongoing assessment to inform instruction. Based on worldwide research from more…

"The Learning Principal" is an eight-page newsletter published eight times a year. It focuses on the important and unique work of school principals. This issue includes: (1) Data Analysis Is a Courageous Look in the Mirror (Valerie von Frank); (2) Q&A: Opening Doors, Opening Minds (Valerie von Frank); (3) Focus on NSDC's [National Staff…

Meeting a growing need for school-based practitioners, this book provides vital tools for improving the academic, behavioral, and social outcomes of students with high-functioning autism or Asperger syndrome (HFA/AS). Research-based best practices are presented for conducting meaningful assessments; collaborating with teachers, students, and…

This book is an easy-to-read primer that describes what it takes to increase student achievement at every grade level, subject area, and student group. Readers will learn how to use data to drive their continuous improvement process as they develop an appreciation of the various types of data, uses for data, and how data are involved with the…

Suffering from data overload? Many schools are. Although schools have lacked sufficient student achievement data to make good instructional decisions in the past, many are now snowed under with data. They are data rich but analysis poor. How can content, vertical, or interdisciplinary school teams make sense of all their data? How can principals…

In these times of high-stakes accountability, all professional educators must learn how to gather, analyze, and use data to improve teaching and learning, becoming efficient generators and consumers of data. The intended audiences for this book are school and district administrators and teacher leaders who recognize the need to use data to…

Recently, Argyle Middle School in Montgomery County, Maryland faced the prospect of corrective action for failure to make adequate yearly progress (AYP) under the No Child Left Behind Act. The county's Office of School Performance designed the Strategic Monitoring/Intervention Process to help schools identify students' academic progress both…

Longitudinal data about individual students and groups of students can be used to track their progress in ways that hold district-level administrators, school principals, and teachers responsible for what's happening in schools. The key is to examine data that show how well individual students perform in specific classrooms in specific schools.…

Defines curriculum as a written organizational plan used for conscious decisionmaking to enhance student achievement and promote responsible social behavior. All written plans for Red Bank (New Jersey) Schools, including testing, scheduling, and budgeting, become part of this curriculum. Workable plans need a sound structure and constant revision.…