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Standards Aligned Network:
Data-Informed Decision Making

A Three-Phase Data-Informed inquiry Cycle

Data

Data— What data do we have regarding achievement, growth, and positive results for students?

Analysis/Discovery— What do the data tell us about the areas of strength and areas of concern? And, why do the data look that way? What are the root causes?

Solutions— What are we going to do about it all? Which evidence-based strategies must we consider in our improvement plan?

Data-Informed Decision Making strategies offer a framework for administrators and teachers to use when deciding how to maximize the impact of data in the classroom. This portion of the site is designed to help organize the numerous resources that currently exist and to provide educators in the GJSD an effective and efficient way of accessing them.

 

 

Links and Resources

Evidence-based Solutions

  • Best Evidence
    Best Evidence Encyclopedia is a free website created by Johns Hopkins University Center for Data-Driven Reform in Education (CDDRE). Its intention is to give educators and researchers fair and useful information about the strength of the evidence supporting a variety of programs available for students in grades k-12. BEE provides summaries of scientific reviews produced by many authors and organizations, as well as links to the full texts of each review.
  • What Works Clearinghouse
    The What Works Clearinghouse was established in 2002 by the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences to provide educators, policymakers, researchers, and the public with a central and trusted source of scientific evidence of what works in education. The current nationwide emphasis on ensuring that all students and schools meet high standards has increased the demand for evidence of "what works" in education. Currently, few resources exist to help education decision makers differentiate high-quality research from weaker research and promotional claims. As a decision-making tool, the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) helps the education community and locate and recognize credible and reliable evidence to make informed decisions.
  • The Campbell Collaboration
    The Campbell Collaboration is a non-profit organization that aims to help people make well-informed decisions about the effects of interventions in the social, behavioral and educational arenas. Their vision is to bring o=positive social change and improve the quality of public and private services by preparing, maintaining, and disseminating systematic reviews of existing social science evidence.
  • Child Trends
    Child Trends is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization that provides social science research to those who serve children and youth.  To advance its mission, Child Trends collects and analyzes data: conducts, synthesizes, and disseminates research; designs and evaluates programs; and develops and tests promising approaches to research in the field.
  • Promising Practices Network
    The Promising Practices Network (PPN) is dedicated to providing quality evidence-based information about what works to improve the lives of children, youth and families. The site features summaries of programs and practices that are proven to improve the outcome for children. All of the information on the site has been carefully screened for scientific rigor, relevance, and clarity.
  • Blueprints for Violence Prevention
  • The Florida Center for Reading Research
  • The Center for Data-Driven Reform in Education
    The Center for Data-Driven Reform in Education (CDDRE), at Johns Hopkins university started its work in 2004 under a 10 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Institute for Education Sciences to create a research center focused on helping low performing schools meet their states' academic performance standards.
  • The Access Center
    The Access Center is a national technical assistance (TA) center funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs.  Our mission is to improve educational outcomes for elementary and middle school students with disabilities.
  • National Dropout Prevention Center
  • The Education Trust
  • Wisconsin Center for Education Research
    The Wisconsin Center for Education Research is one of the oldest, largest, and most productive education research centers in the world.  WCER provides a productive environment where some of the country's leading scholars conduct basic and applied education research.
  • School Matters
    Despite a 50 percent increase in per pupil spending over the past two decades, nearly one third of public high school students fail to graduate, and two thirds of all students leave high school unprepared for a four-year college, according to the Manhattan Institute. Given the diminishing economic prospects for Americans without a quality education, the need for reform is clear.

    Policymakers, educators, and individual parents are working hard to improve our schools, and they deserve respect and gratitude for taking on such a difficult challenge. However, education leaders are often forced to make critical decisions based on incomplete information, simply because there hasn't been a national, easily searchable clearinghouse for education information and analysis-until now.

    SchoolMatters gives policymakers, educators, and parents the tools they need to make better-informed decisions that improve student performance. SchoolMatters will educate, empower, and engage education stakeholders.

    • The information and analysis will educate Americans about how schools and school districts are performing and help them understand the complex relationships between achievement and investment.
    • SchoolMatters will empower educators and policymakers, giving them easy access to the information they need to craft strong education policies.
    • Finally, SchoolMatters will engage the public in a widespread movement to improve our nation's school systems. For the first time, parents and the general public will have instant access to a wide range of data on local schools and schools districts, enabling them to make informed decisions, ranging from policies they advocate to the schools their children attend.

  • Center on Innovation and Improvement
  • Center on Instruction
    By insisting on high achievement by all students, regardless of geography or life circumstance, the No Child Left Behind Act has made the need for rigorous, effective instruction an urgent national priority.

    In order to build the capacity of the regional Comprehensive Centers to meet state and local instructional needs, improve the overall quality of teaching and learning, and promote the understanding and use of evidence based instruction, the Center on Instruction is devoted to the primacy of instruction in school improvement.

    The Center supports the regional Comprehensive Centers as they serve state education leaders in the work of helping schools and districts meet the goals of No Child Left Behind-to close the achievement gap and improve teaching and learning for all students. To that end, we will offer information on NCLB and best practices in reading, math, science, Special Education, and ELL instruction; syntheses of recent scientific research on instruction; and opportunities for professional development.

  • National Dissemination Center for Children with Disablities
    We are the center that provides information to the nation on:
    • disabilities in children and youth;
    • programs and services for infants, children, and youth with disabilities;
    • IDEA, the nation's special education law;
    • No Child Left Behind, the nation's general education law; and
    • research-based information on effective practices for children with disabilities.

    Anyone can use our services—families, educators, administrators, journalists, students. Our special focus is children and youth (birth to age 22).

  • Teaching LD
    TeachingLD is a service of the Division for Learning Disabilities (DLD) of the Council for Exceptional Children. DLD is the largest international professional organization focused on Learning Disabilities. The purpose of TeachingLD is to provide trustworthy and up-to-date resources about teaching students with Learning Disabilities. In addition to serving as a resource for members of DLD, TeachingLD.org publishes content about assessment, instruction, and policy related to Learning Disabilities. Readers can find information about curriculum-based measurement for monitoring student progress; teaching methods such a co-teaching and direct instruction; and current issues such as response-to-intervention models.
  • PDE Data Toolkit
    The toolkit offers templates, graphs and charts as well as guiding questions to lead conversation about curriculum and instruction. The tools about 'data' are part of the Data-Design-Delivery-Development-Documentation sequence found in Getting Results!, the school improvement framework and Leading For Learning!, the district strategic planning framework.

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