The foundation seeks to catalyze the strategic use of data in ways that are critical to the success of core college-ready goals in education. When educators are guided by actionable questions, and supported by the appropriate infrastructure, analyses, and culture, data can be a powerful tool to help inform key decisions that impact student learning. The initiatives below are examples of how we're seeking to better equip the field to use data in support of its efforts to increase college-readiness:
National Student Clearinghouse Pilot
The National Student Clearinghouse is at the center of a new pilot program to track the postsecondary outcomes of high school students in three states. The Clearinghouse, which maintains a database with nationwide college enrollment and degree information, aims to link K-12 and postsecondary data in a set of high-quality, actionable reports that can be used by schools, districts, and states to improve the college readiness and success of their students. The pilot program represents a collaboration among the National Student Clearinghouse, the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University, College Summit, MPR Associates, and state and local education agencies in Florida, Georgia, and Texas. In addition to the reports, the project seeks to create a web tool and related professional development resources.
UPDATE:
This fall and winter 2011, The Clearinghouse and its partners distributed a set of first-of-their-kind education data reports in the three pilot states. The reports fill a critical hole in states’ education data by bridging the gap between two pools of existing data – information about public school students’ high school experience and information about those students’ enrollment and success in college – enabling public school education leaders at the state, district and school levels to better understand how well their students perform in college and how specific elements of their high school education relate to college enrollment and persistence.
Over the coming months, project partners College Summit, the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University, and MPR Associates, Inc. will work with education officials in the three pilot states to use the project’s data in concrete, results-oriented ways, such as by providing professional development to selected schools and districts.
The Tracking Postsecondary Outcomes for High Schools Pilot Project is supported by more than $14.5 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Strategic Data Project
The Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University (CEPR) is housing a new, comprehensive program that will greatly improve how district and state leaders use data in management and policy creation, resulting in improved outcomes for students. This program will combine the assembly of data for decision making, a performance review for education agencies illustrating how data can be analyzed to yield new insights into student outcomes, and the placement of fulltime Strategic Data Fellows to provide agency leadership with ongoing analytic support.
Teacher-Student Data Link Project
The Teacher-Student Data Link project is a cross-state, collaborative effort focused on developing a common best practice definition of “Teacher of Record” and business processes for collecting and validating linked teacher and student data. Led by the Center for Educational Leadership and Technology, the initiative brings together the state education departments in five states: Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Ohio—and three of their local education agencies (LEAs) to conduct a comprehensive assessment of their data systems, business processes, and policies related to the linking of teacher and student data.
By combining their collective experiences, knowledge, and resources, participating agencies hope to access one of the most critical components of their data systems and use data to increase student learning and improve teacher quality.