The Michael and Susan Dell Foundation is out with a worthwhile report on performance management, one of the foundation's major investment areas.
The Dell folks think using data conscientiously is a, if not the, key, to bringing about significant improvements in school systems. Personally, I've been skeptical of this view for some time. The proliferation of state assessments (and the stacks of resulting data) never generated the wholesale improvements in performance that many of us hoped, so I'm generally leery of new multi-million (billion?) dollar data initiatives that make big promises.
But Dell and other like-minded groups would probably reply that we never saw the results we wanted precisely because we didn't use the information correctly. If that's the case and data, via proper performance management, is a/the key, then Dell's approach deserves greater attention--they are certainly a leader in this field.
The report discusses ways to give teachers real-time information in user-friendly ways.??Visually pleasing "student snapshots" provide student-level data and analysis, helping classroom instructors??identify emerging problems, evaluate the the efficacy of interventions, and so on.
The report also makes recommendations on how to build the right infrastructure??in schools and districts??to support performance management, such as developing a culture committed to collecting and using data and assembling the right technology so teachers, principals, and central administrators have the types of information they need. ??It also provides??examples of urban districts headed in this direction.
If you're interested in data and performance management (concepts embedded throughout the ARRA, including the RTT) or the priorities of this major education philanthropy, give the report a look.
(In the above applies, you might also want to check out this job posting...)