How can we prepare students for a world where data-driven decision-making shapes nearly every aspect of life? "Data Minds: How Today's Teachers Can Prepare Students for Tomorrow's World" helps K-8 educators infuse data literacy into everyday lessons across disciplines, without overwhelming existing curricula. Data literacy is an ability…

Decision-making, a key factor of organizational performance, is based on information retrieved from processing raw data. As businesses and consumers are shifting toward digital channels, more and more data is being generated through digital services and electronic devices. Big Data is argued to have significant benefits to businesses, and yet data…

While there are many different types of education data, policymakers and education leaders often place heavy emphasis on data from large-scale quantitative measures, such as annual state assessments. But data from these sources alone do not provide a complete picture of learning and are often not well suited to informing improvements at the local…

Data-based decision-making has been a frequently used policy and practice intervention used in schools to help inform the decision-making processes of educational practitioners, with the aim of improving student outcomes. Interim benchmark assessments are designed by commercial test developers to support educators in this framework. In fact, the…

Traditional functional budgets are useful for planning under predictable business environments. However, due to increased competition, changes in technology, consumer attitudes, and economic factors affecting supply chains, accountants must understand the characteristics of risk and uncertainty. Additionally, businesses now have access to…

Statewide longitudinal data systems (SLDSs) can enable researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to identify and understand important relationships and trends across the education-to-workforce continuum. A well-developed SLDS can increase state and territory governments' ability to establish more informed and equitable policies, enable agency…

Purpose: School principals are increasingly responsible for acting as instructional leaders, but research on data teams typically considers principals as secondary players responsible for ensuring that meetings occur but not necessarily for their quality. We investigated how elementary school principals in one district committed to data use…

Students cannot experience the full potential benefits of an intervention unless they are receiving the intervention. This is the second installment in a three-part series on intervention fidelity designed to highlight the importance of ensuring classroom supports are implemented as intended. This article provides guidance related to measuring and…

One of the most significant issues in education, as defined by the U.S. Department of Education Office of Accountability (2018), is disproportionality in exclusionary discipline. Disproportionality is defined as the over- and under-representation of racial/ethnic minorities in relation to their overall enrollment (Ahram et al., 2011). Currently,…

A national poll from the Data Quality Campaign (DQC), conducted by The Harris Poll, surveyed early childhood administrators--educational or child care professionals in program director or general manager roles serving children from birth through age four--to find out how they are collecting, using, and reporting data. Early childhood…

Those asked to make valid decisions with data don't have the technical knowledge to understand nuance around data quality, assessment aims, and statistical limitations that influence how they should interpret the data. This reality is what Greg Thompson, Leslie Rutkowski, and David Rutkowski call the validity paradox. Educators can surmount this…

Collecting data for the purpose of decision making has become an integral part of the landscape of education in the United States over the past decade. Many educators are swamped with such an overwhelming amount of information that it can be difficult to sort and analyze, leaving them floundering under wave after wave of data. The SWIS facilitator…

Each year, state legislators introduce hundreds of bills that generate new data collections, analyses, and resources, playing a crucial role in how people access and use data. Notably, in 2023 legislators introduced and enacted bills governing cross-agency data systems--the most important step that states must take to make robust access to data…

This study explored the core competencies, technological skills, functional proficiencies, and professional experiences of data scientists at higher education institutions. The specific population of interest was higher education administrators and staff professionals identified as data scientists. This study was informed by the following guiding…

Data reflects a series of decisions made by people--and those decisions affect the story that data tells, what it captures, and how it can and should be used to inform decision-making. Because of this, mistrust in data is often the result of incomplete information and a lack of context. This resource breaks down what it means to build trust in…