School leadership is broadly acknowledged to be the lynchpin for school success. Yet, amongst the countless demands that school leaders face, making wise leadership choices is increasingly challenging. On what should leaders focus their attention and how should they prioritize their improvement efforts? How can they identify, understand, and make…

In an international benchmark survey of high school students, the U.S. consistently scores in the middle of the pack compared to many western European and eastern Asian countries. Finland has been among the top performers dating back to 2000. The country's performance led many in the U.S. to ask, what is Finland doing that is leading to high…

Almost half of Tennessee's students are not on grade level in reading and math by the time they complete third grade, and very few of those students achieve proficiency in later grades. To combat this trend and support the skill development and academic achievement of all students, Tennessee has adopted a framework for addressing individual…

Since 2010, the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) has periodically administered the "Strong Foundations" survey, which documents the content, structure, and effective use of state postsecondary student unit record systems (PSURSs). This report highlights the results of the fourth administration of the survey,…

This report addresses two key questions about postsecondary student unit record data systems (PSURSs): (1) What data are collected by various parties; and (2) how do these entities use the data to inform policy decisions? This 2016 report is both a follow-up and a redesign of two previous "Strong Foundations" reports by SHEEO (2010 and…

At MIT in the 1990's, data from two sources, a study of the writing ability of a small group of randomly selected MIT juniors correlated to their overall academic performance and a survey of alumni from various years provided the major motivation for the development by MIT faculty and administration of a very ambitious…