Provide Educators With Technical Know-How on How to Use Data and Data-Based Best Practices

The momentum behind building high-quality data systems to harvest better information about student, school and district performance has never been stronger. However, even if a state does build a P-20 longitudinal data system, this is still no guarantee that educators will be able to access information on their students in real time, if at all.

Valuing, accessing and using data or best practices have not been part of most educators’ training or culture up to this point. Many educators may still harbor negative perceptions of data because in the past the data have been incomprehensible, unhelpful, too focused on test scores or used solely for compliance purposes.

While successful corporations provide managers with access to information to make decisions daily that impact the results of that entity, very few teachers, principals, district officials have been trained in using the technology and data systems that are going to start being available in every school.   Business leaders’ expertise in change management and insight into building a culture of trust, openness and transparency will be invaluable to educators who have only had reason up to now to fear that data would “hurt” them.

Beyond that, too often, educators do not know how to use the data system or lack training in how to leverage the information to improve instruction. Although collecting and disseminating better data is essential, knowing how to analyze and apply this information is just as important for improving student achievement. Business leaders, by tapping into their own corporate experiences, can help educators, administrators and policymakers understand how to access and use longitudinal data as part of daily operations and long-term improvement strategies.

Business leaders understand the power of data and how to use data to ensure that desired goals are met, to gauge progress and to alter the processes when necessary to reach the final outcome. They are in a position to help explain and mentor educators use longitudinal data to conduct external and internal analyses of education programs and practices, validate academic and performance standards and identify best practices across schools and districts.

IBM’s Reinventing Education grants, for example, focus on promoting and augmenting the use of data in education. Working in partnerships with Miami-Dade County Public Schools and Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, IBM is designing and developing a “Teacher's Workbench.” The Workbench integrates plan book, grade book, and longitudinal and demographic student-level data from multiple sources into one system with desktop access. The Workbench also performs ongoing trend analyses and alerts teachers to potential achievement issues and concerns, providing teachers with easy access to timely information so that teachers can address problems or challenges as they arise. The use of this new technology will be tied to teacher training and lesson plan development to maximize its usefulness.

A State Example: Ohio

In 2003, the Ohio General Assembly passed a bill mandating that a “value-added progress” measure be added as an official metric in Ohio’s education accountability system. As of the 2007-2008 school year, all Ohio school districts will receive 4th- through 8th-grade reading and math value-added reports. In preparation for the roll out of the value-added progress measure, the Ohio Department of Education and Battelle for Kids are leading a comprehensive training program to develop the data and technological skills of a cadre of educators. Battelle for Kids, created by a partnership between the Ohio Business Roundtable and supported by the Battelle Memorial Institute, is a business-led nonprofit organization dedicated to enhancing student learning opportunities by offering educators an array of professional development, technical training and consulting, innovative solutions and tools, and research and evaluation services, focused on the use of quality student-level data (click here for more on Battelle for Kids).

Both the business community and Ohio Department of Education have been proactive about getting existing data into the hands of educators. Data Driven Decisions for Academic Achievement (D3A2) is a statewide collaborative system designed to give Ohio educators access to timely longitudinal data and education materials aligned with Ohio’s academic content standards, including assessment item analysis data, tools to interpret areas needing improvement and links to aligned education content and resources. Because D3A2 is designed for classroom use and district participation is voluntary, the Ohio Department of Education conducted several teacher focus groups to ensure the data system would meet users’ needs. Looking forward, in recognition that the teachers also using value-added data through Battelle for Kids want access to those value-added tools through the D3A2 environment – and given Battelle for Kids’ involvement in D3A2’s committees – it is currently under consideration for these value-added data to be integrated in D3A2 in a later phase.