How does one overcome the challenges to finding time for meaningful professional learning? The authors asked seven experts in the field, and these practitioners offer powerful strategies for making better use of educator time. An example from Illinois centers student data in school systems as an essential component of a school's overall commitment…

In this review, I examined the last two decades of research on data use in education to outline the ways in which principals used data to inform their own leadership practices. I found three themes: first, student achievement data were the most widespread form of data that principals used; second, principals' work has been reshaped by teacher…

This study explored the way in which detailed data about how time is spent on classroom activities, generated by the FILL+ tool (Framework for Interactive Learning in Lectures), can stimulate professional conversations about teaching practices and aid reflection for STEMM lecturers. The lecturers felt that personalised data provided an unbiased…

Improvement networks are a relatively recent phenomenon in US education that create interorganizational networks of educators working together to improve specific educational problems. A shared emphasis of these networks is the use of data to support the improvement process, but little is known about their data use in practice. This study takes an…

School climate surveys are frequently used to collect information about student experiences in school. Less is known about how educators use survey data after survey administration. This paper explores one school district's critical use of evidence to promote equitable change. We conducted eight semi-structured interviews with district and school…

We live in a data-driven world. The voluminous scale of data gathered can lead to diminished consciousness of ethics whilst economic interests are prioritised. Across recent decades education has come to be heavily data driven and datafied. We have witnessed the dehumanising and increased labour impacts of school datafication. In search for…

In current contexts of education, educators are tasked with using data, most often without any critical preparation to do so. In this way, data are presented as objective measures of student progress and participation in school without consideration of the systemic and structural influences on that progress and participation. This article reports…

To support and better understand how to scale effectively, in 2020, the Millions Learning project at the Center for Universal Education (CUE) at Brookings joined the Global Partnership for Education's (GPE) Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (KIX), a joint partnership between GPE and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), to…

When Dr. Tina Lupton and Dr. Timisha Barnes-Jones joined the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, Opportunity Culture implementation was happening in the midst of COVID. Lupton, the executive director of professional learning, and Barnes-Jones, the area superintendent for a network of 15 transformation schools, used their experience in other…

Speculative reform jumps the gun on notions of data-driven reform, requiring administrators to anticipate and act to ensure problems (and the data that would show them) do not materialize. Speculative reforms are incapable of delivering the outcomes they promise, as they are fueled by a fear of the future that their reforms do not extinguish. In…

At the end of 2021, the spread of the COVID-19 virus Delta variant and the start of the new school year combined to present many educators and administrators with the hardest year yet in the pandemic, in terms of both delivering instruction and assessing student learning. Students entered the school year with increased anxiety, and assessment was…

Coaching is a form of professional learning that can contextualize learning and personalize the development of knowledge and skills to improve professional practice and the student experience. Coaching for equity-oriented continuous improvement needs be defined differently than instructional coaching since the schools are focused on changing…

When Nia Thornton became an assistant principal at Central Gwinnett High School in Georgia, one of her responsibilities was to lead professional learning for the school staff. She and the school leadership team were excited engage the staff in meaningful, day-to-day learning. They knew that their work needed to be rooted in current research and…

Shifts in the education system to more student-centered learning will require state and local education agencies to rethink how they do their work. Current accountability systems focus on compliance with standards, as demonstrated in annual summative assessments. Mark Elgart explains that a new approach to accountability will offer more authentic…

The U.S. education system is facing severe challenges, including student learning loss, declining academic performance, a youth mental health crisis, and increasing absenteeism. Yet these challenges also provide a catalyst for transformational change. But a new paradigm for education cannot be done without the support for transformative school…