Educators have long been awash in a sea of standardized test score data, with the understanding that their engagement with these data will lead to improvement in teaching and learning. But, in practice, these data have often been too infrequent, too lagging, and too distant from day-to-day practice to inform actionable next steps. To improve…

Evaluation is a critical component of continuous improvement in education. Robust evaluations enable engaged parties to determine program and intervention impact on key outcomes, identify areas for improvement, and guide future actions. Additionally, as educational systems increasingly focus on data-driven decisionmaking, evaluation becomes even…

This national snapshot presents findings on the current use of evidence by teachers and leaders in Australian schools. The authors examine attitudes towards and use of various types of evidence, and challenges and enablers in using evidence. In examining the use of evidence, they distinguish between: (1) research evidence: academic research, such…

The School Spending & Outcomes Snapshot allows users to view and print data visualizations to explore spending and outcomes data in order to foster thoughtful conversations to improve equity and outcomes in their schools communities.

This qualitative, phenomenological case study was to determine the impact the state accountability system has on school improvement practices for schools that have been designated under the statewide system of support. Nine district and school level leaders were interviewed from one suburban school district designated as…

Over the course of four meetings, the Hunt-Lee Commission engaged in comprehensive conversations around key education opportunities including transitions, structure and alignment, funding, and access. Each meeting included presentations from resource experts and opportunities for Q&A and small group discussions. The final report summarizes…

This dissertation consists of three papers. Online Learning, Offline Outcomes: Online Course Taking and High School Student Performance. This paper uses fixed effects models to estimate differences in contemporaneous and downstream academic outcomes for students who take courses virtually and face-to-face, both for initial attempts and for…

Background/Context: There is a body of evolving research on how educators use data for improvement, with many examples in the literature about how educators learn to use a routine of data-driven cycles of inquiry to make smart improvements to their practice. This article is not an alternative structure for engaging in cycles of inquiry, but rather…

Amid rising concerns in recent decades about the performance, equity, and efficiency of education systems, policy-makers worldwide have sought to reform educational governance. Key reform elements include standardized testing, teacher monitoring and evaluation, and accountability, often in combination with other features such as decentralization…

After decades of accountability and market-based reforms in education, school systems are now organizing more around improving teaching and learning. Yet these efforts frequently yield unintended, superficial, or even counterproductive changes at the school level. In this article, Maxwell Yurkofsky develops the concept of technical ceremonies as a…

Background/Context: Researchers have amassed considerable evidence on the use of student performance data (e.g., benchmark and standardized state tests) to inform educational improvement, but few have examined the use of nonacademic indicators (e.g., indicators of social and emotional well-being) available to educators, and whether the factors…

School performance frameworks (SPFs) are action-oriented information tools that provide information on school performance and quality across a variety of measures. SPFs have evolved as a solution for local communities to make sense of an array of student, school, and system performance data, and to support transparent and equitable decisions. SPFs…