Background/Context: This article advances scholarship from curriculum theorists, educational philosophers, and educational researchers unpacking the dehumanizing aspects of education. Focus of Study: The article maps the role of the tree as a measuring and organizing apparatus of curriculum and unpacks possibilities for utilizing rhizomes as a way…

Background/Context: The data team intervention was designed to support schools in using data while developing a solution to an educational problem. The participating data team members are responsible for building collective capacity within their school for using data and implementing actions related to the improvement plan. This can be…

Background: Data-driven decision making continues to be a common feature of educational reform agendas across the globe. In many U.S. schools, the teacher team meeting is a key setting in which data use is intended to take place, with the aim of planning instruction to address students' needs. However, most prior research has not examined how the…

Background: This research review provides an analysis of current research related to school and district data use, with a particular focus on identifying key characteristics of schools and districts with effective "data using cultures." The research review identifies and analyzes findings in five key areas of practice: communicating…

Background/Context: In recent years, states, districts, schools, and external partners have recognized the need to proactively foster the use of data to guide educational decision-making and practice. Understanding that data alone will not guarantee use, individuals at all levels have invested in interventions to support better access to,…

Background: Amid calls for increased data use, there is little research or policy guidance for how to build schools' capacity to leverage data to improve teaching and learning. Building on previous research highlighting the social nature of data use, we contend that in order to understand how capacity develops, research must focus on relationships…

Background: With the growing emphasis for educators to use data to inform their practice, little has been done to consider the means by which the educators can acquire the requisite data literacy skills. This article provides a context for why schools of education can and must play an important role in preparing teachers to use data. Purpose: This…

Background: Increasingly, teachers and other educators are expected to leverage data in making educational decisions. Effective data use is difficult, if not impossible, without computer data systems. Nonetheless, these systems may be underused or even rejected by teachers. One potential explanation for such troubles may relate to how teachers…

Context: Collaboration within school teams is considered to be important to build the capacity school teams need to work in a data-based way. In a school characterized by a strong collaborative culture, teachers may have more access to the knowledge and skills for analyzing data, teachers have more opportunity to discuss the performance goals to…

Background: In the past decade, there has been an increasing national policy push for educators to systematically collect, interpret, and use data for instructional decision making. The assumption by the federal government is that having data systems will be enough to prompt the use of data for a wide range of decision making. These policies rely…

This commentary on the special issue on data use highlights the distinctions between data systems intended to improve the performance of school staff and those intended to hold schools and districts accountable for outcomes. It advises researchers to be alert to the differences in the policy logics connected with each approach.

Background/Context: Many contemporary education reformers present themselves as reformers who, armed with data and evidence, are locked in battle against politics, the weapon of choice for entrenched defenders of the status quo. Although studies of school reform increasingly recognize that politics is inevitably intertwined with reform efforts,…

This commentary frames the importance of the topic of this special issue by highlighting the changes that have occurred in school systems around data use, particularly in large urban districts, and the need for a more rigorous evidence base. Collectively, the articles in this volume provide a jumping-off point for such a research agenda around…

Background: In the last few decades, a focus on school accountability at the state and federal levels has created expectations for teachers to attend to data in increasingly structured ways. Although professional learning is often cited as an important facilitator of effective data use, research that focuses on the intersection of professional…

Background: Case studies suggest that late hiring timelines are common in large urban school districts and result in the loss of qualified teachers to surrounding suburbs. To date, however, there has been no large-scale quantitative investigation of the relationship between the timing of teacher hires and teacher qualifications. Purpose: This…