Data-driven decision-making (DDDM) in public K-12 education is a concept that has been studied extensively over the last 20 years. Using data to inform or make decisions is believed to be an important and valuable strategic process. This exploratory, descriptive research focused on public school principals and their use of data in their…

To ensure all students, including historically marginalized students, reached their highest capacity, there was a focus on equity in education at the state and national levels. Minimal research existed where researchers explored principals' educational equity mindset, and I found a gap in the literature concerning the use of principals'…

Many school leaders who sought to enculturate distributive leadership and shared decision-making within their schools/school districts may not have adequate data tools that would encourage teachers and educational leaders to actively participate during times of decision-making. School organizations may struggle in this area and could benefit from…

In this article, I describe how principals accessed teacher and student data on a centralized data warehouse (DWH) during an academic school year. I found that principals did not use the DWH very often during the year. When logged on, principals most often looked at reports on student achievement, teachers' performance, or student demographics.…

School principals are responsible for improving low College and Career Ready Performance Index (CCRPI) scores; however, little was understood about how K-12 school principals' leadership practices were perceived to improve CCRPI scores in schools. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to examine the leadership practices of K-12 school…

Data usage-related reforms lead schools to different practices in terms of management. The conceptualization of data usage and data-based management will ensure that robust steps are taken for the future in terms of reforms made or to be made in the name of education. In this direction, this study is developed as a qualitative case study to…

The potential benefits of the growing amount of available educational data have not been fully realized, especially for principals, who play a key role in deriving insight from data to inform school improvement. The purpose of this mixed methods study was to describe experiences of principals using data analysis tools in a K-12 system. With a…

The use of blended learning in kindergarten K-12 schools in the past decade has seen a dramatic increase, but the research on the effectiveness of blended learning has shown mixed results. However, some schools use blended learning that would be considered successful. The purpose of this study was to explore the lived experience of principals in…

Nearly half of new teachers leave the profession within five years of employment, and most would not recommend teaching as a profession. A shortage of highly effective teachers continues in public schools across the nation; hence, meaningful professional development needs to be implemented to adequately prepare and retain teachers for the…

This paper explores the student achievement-related decision-making processes of eight school principals in Ontario, Canada. First, we describe Ontario's public education system with respect to neo-liberalism and student achievement. Next, we review general approaches to reducing the achievement gap as it pertains to matters of race. We then show…

This study examines what aspiring principal candidates in one university-based preparation program learned as a result of developing and implementing a school improvement plan. A case study approach was used to examine 53 aspiring principals' reports of what they learned from implementing school improvement plans. Findings revealed three…

In this comparative study, I examine principal data use in two sets of districts. One set of three districts has a district-wide focus on using data to improve instruction, and the other set, also with three districts, has a district-wide focus on analyzing disaggregated data by student demographic groups. Data sources include interviews with…

State leaders are grappling with generation-defining challenges as they work to fully understand and address the impact of the pandemic on students and communities. As leaders turn their attention to the upcoming school year, data continues to be a critical tool for informing recovery efforts. Data Quality Campaign's (DQC) 2021 public opinion…

For several years, WestEd's Measure to Learn and Improve (MLI) project team has kept California state policy leaders informed about the statewide implementation of the California Academic Standards in English language arts and mathematics, by summarizing and disseminating results from the RAND Corporation's annual American Educator Panel (AEP)…

As part of the Every Student Succeeds Act, the teacher evaluation system includes qualitative and quantitative data to measure teacher quality. Today, school administrators are expected to interpret classroom observation ratings and student growth data to make decisions for instructional improvement. The goal for using an interpretive qualitative…