Determining whether a state's young people are on track for a life of opportunity is a difficult task for governors and state leaders. States can be both awash in data and unable to easily access and use that data to inform policy. State longitudinal data systems that meaningfully connect workforce, higher education, K-12, and early childhood…

Governments, organizations, and companies are generating copious amounts of data and analysis to support education decision-making around the world. While continued investments in data creation and management are necessary, the ultimate value of information is not in its "production," but its "use." Herein lies one of the…

All students deserve a great education, one that affords every opportunity for them to grow into knowledgeable and successful adults. To date, efforts to improve education have operated on a model of mass production, assuming--wrongly--that what works for some students must work for all. To change that model, students and their parents, teachers,…

This report is based on the 2016-17 survey "Career and Technical Education Programs in Public School Districts" and provides nationally representative data on career and technical education (CTE) programs. The survey defines a CTE program as a sequence of courses at the high school level that provides students with the academic and…

This study examined the diagnostic accuracy associated with decision making as is typically conducted with curriculum-based measurement (CBM) approaches to progress monitoring. Using previously published estimates of the standard errors of estimate associated with CBM, 20,000 progress-monitoring data sets were simulated to model student reading…

Over the last years, principals in schools have had to contend with numerous governmental regulations that change with each passing year. The change from instruction based on concepts to instruction based on standards to instruction based on student performance has created a need for principals to utilize data in ever-increasing forms. Both…

With the 2016 presidential election right around the corner, geography provides a dynamic view of the spatial patterns and processes that shape the electorate. The major presidential campaigns know that a winning strategy must use geography to make informed decisions about where to allocate limited resources such as money and staff. In the end,…

This paper presents an analysis of the effects of in-state resident tuition (IRT) policies, which allow undocumented immigrants to pay in-state rather than out-of state tuition, on when and where undocumented immigrant students enroll, and how they finance their education. We identify effects based on differences in pre- and post-policy outcomes…

To help provide context to Measures of Academic Progress® (MAP®) normative percentiles, this document includes multiple College and Career Readiness (CCR) benchmarks, including those from ACT® and Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (Smarter Balanced).

Federal education policy in recent years has encouraged state and local education agencies to embrace data use and analysis in decision-making, ranging from policy development and implementation to performance evaluation. The capacity of these agencies to make effective and methodologically sound use of collected data for these purposes remains an…

Given the financial implications for studying at a higher education institution, students are faced with many decisions both in terms of the topics they wish to study but also the decision of whether to remain at home or move away. The aim of this article is to compare the experiences of South Asian (Indian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani) female…

Data-based decision making is all the rage. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (2009) has emphatically declared, "I am a deep believer in the power of data to drive our decisions. Data gives us the roadmap to reform. It tells us where we are, where we need to go, and who is most at risk." In the past few years, all 50 states have adopted most or…

Indiana is at the national forefront on private school choice. With the broadest eligibility guidelines among the country's 22 other school voucher programs, Indiana's Choice Scholarship Program has seen enrollment more than double each year since being enacted in 2011. Today, when compared with voucher programs in 12 other states, Indiana has the…

The main objective of this study was to determine constraints and suggestions of farmers towards adopting seasonal climate forecasts. It addresses the question: Which forms of providing forecasts will be helpful to farmers in agricultural decision making? For the study, farmers were selected from Andhra Pradesh state of South India. One hundred…

Scientists have long recognized the value of having statistical data to measure the scope and vitality of education, research, and workforce development in their fields. Such data support evidence-based policy discussions in professional and governmental forums. Since 1982, the National Science Board has been required by law to publish…