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Data-Driven Decisionmaking

Data-driven decisionmaking commonly supposes that if data are available, they can be used to improve student achievement and foster more effective practices. All too often data from high-stakes tests are treated as the bottom line, and a mythology exists that a straight accounting of the system's effectiveness follows directly from an analysis of those data. However, all data are not created equal. Whether assessments are summative, formative, or diagnostic and at which level of the system they are targeting all influence the application of the data set. To make use of data in the interests of students, practitioners need appropriate measures, interpretative experience, and pedagogical knowledge about using data to inform instruction. Bringing practitioners more fully into proficiency in data use holds the potential to make accountability more than a watchdog, but a genuine educational component. CCT staff who have played prominent roles in this domain include Daniel Light, and Naomi Hupert. Select a snapshot below to learn more about the kinds of work we do in this area.

• Snapshot 1
  With funding from the Carnegie Corporation, we conducted an independent research study of a web-based test data reporting system in New York City's school system. Designed by the Grow Network, the Grow Reports aim to help teachers and principals gather, make sense of, and use assessment data to support meaningful standards-based teaching and learning. New York City teachers accessed the reports to examine student test data for all 450,000 students in grades 3 through 8. Our study uncovered surprising findings in how teachers interpret data that has informed much of our subsequent work.
• Snapshot 2
  We are looking at the implementation and impact of three different technology-based, data-driven instructional decision making tools on different levels of school systems (i.e., administrative and classroom) as part of the NSF-funded Creating an Evaluation Framework project. Through this project, we are identifying variables that either facilitate or hinder the use of data to inform decisionmaking and have developed a framework that describes the interaction of data with the structure and function of schools as complex systems.
• Snapshot 3
  In New Mexico, the state's Reading First implementation has promoted handhelds to support classroom reading assessments, demonstrating the power of putting data in teacher's hands. The teachers are using electronic data to identify struggling readers and provide interventions so that all children achieve reading proficiency by 3rd grade.

  “The greatest advantage we see,” lead evaluator Naomi Hupert explained to Education Week, “is that teachers, for the first time, felt like the data was for their own purpose.”