One of the US Department of Education's unsung heroes is its??Policy and Program Studies Service, which produces all sorts of interesting and unbiased evaluations and reports. Too few people know about the office's publications (I hope Secretary Duncan's team is working on increasing PPSS's public profile), which are often very valuable.
One recent report,??Use of Education Data at the Local Level, deserves attention. Looking past states' improved collection and dissemination of data in the NCLB era, the report investigates how districts and schools are using different types of information to improve student learning. Fascinating findings include that districts often have a number of different data systems that aren't yet integrated, that teachers are still often unable to use data to improve classroom instruction, that the timing of assessment administration can improve teacher collaboration, and that timely interim assessment results will increase teacher data use.
To see how one big urban district is thinking about these issues, check out this article on Chicago. The central office, led by the new schools CEO Ron Huberman,??is wrestling with the very issues raised by the report. ??(More info on Huberman's work on this front here.)
I've always been somewhat luke-warm on the long-term prospects of this type of data use. I've been of the mind that most big urban school districts are somewhere between an F and a D+ and that even the best data use would improve a system a letter grade at the most. The only way to get meaningful, sustainable change, I've argued, is to fundamentally alter the district structure and overhaul human capital initiatives.
But these data efforts have me more encouraged than I've been. I still believe those systemic changes are indispensable, but while we're working on those, improving how we collect, analyze, and operationalize student performance information on the ground--particularly if you are a classroom teacher or professional development manager--is an important piece of the puzzle today.
--Andy Smarick