Five Organizing Themes provide the primary structure for studying the practices of Consistently Higher Performing Schools. The themes represent the broad topics that connect the identified practices across different organizational levels. Together, these themes capture the primary instructional activities undertaken by school systems and represent the major content areas in which practices of higher performing school systems differ from their average-performing counterparts.

The JFTK Best Practice Framework features three primary components: Organizing Themes, Organizational Levels, and School System Practices. The Framework rests on the state standards as a basis for teaching and learning.

From PBS 39 Education. What is data driven decsion making and why is it needed? Using data is critical in strategies for student achievement.

From the Annenberg Institute. Using Data for Decisions. A study of four leading-edge districts suggests what it might take to create a system that provides useful information about early signals of progress toward academic achievement.

We know that the typical multiple-choice and short-answer tests aren't the only way, or necessarily the best way, to gauge a student's knowledge and abilities. Many states are incorporating performance-based assessments into their standardized tests or adding assessment vehicles such as student portfolios and presentations as additional measures of student understanding.

With over 420,000 students and more than 600 schools, Chicago Public Schools finds itself in all three stages of data-driven decision making at once: collection, analysis, and action. The master data warehouse is nearly complete and will be rolled out in fall 2007 along with systems for specialized services management, curriculum instruction, and student information. Analysis is handled by the Office of Research and Analysis and published on a dedicated research Web site (http://research.cps.k12.il.us). The Principals Technology Leadership Institute (PTLI) is training principals in the art and science of using data for decision-making within their schools.

Teachers understand the importance of accountability and they embrace it. But an accurate and fair school accountability system remains elusive.Accountability has become a 'gotcha game'-designed to blame and punish, rather than to build capacity for improvement. Article describes four pillars of a new system of accountability.

One of the country's largest school districts has found great success in managing student records through a customized data warehousing, reporting, and analytics package. Teachers and administrators are extremely pleased with the tool, which helps them track the large and often transient student populations they serve in rapidly growing Hillsborough County, Florida.

This case study from the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) provides an up-close look at how one of these trailblazers has established a sustainable strategy for data-driven decision making (DDDM).

Simple strategies & tools to make sense of your student achievement data from Dennis Fox. The site includes downloadable workshop handouts.

Using Data to Improve Schools: What's Working is an easy-to-read guide to using data to drive school improvement. School system leaders and their staffs can learn from this book how to build a districtwide culture of inquiry that values the use of data for sound decision-making. School board members, parents and community members interested in helping improve schools will find tools for their work as well in this guide. It describes the challenges and the successes of educators from districts both large and small committed to using data.

Administrators will face, if they aren't already, five particular challenges in their use of data.
1.Harnessing more powerful data tools and greater amounts of data.
2.Granting teacher, parent and community access to data
3. Planning and utilizing interoperability standards
4. Guaranteeing integrity, privacy and security
5. Building data analysis and interpretation skills

Everyone's talking about D3M. Use this guide to help prevent all that data from driving you nuts.

Thoughtful analysis from Scott McLeod. In his work with numerous school organizations in multiple states, he has seen the power of data firsthand. When done right, data-driven education can have powerful impacts on the learning outcomes of students. Unfortunately, most school districts still are struggling with their data-driven practice. Much of this is because they continue to think about using data from a compliance mindset rather than using data for meaningful school improvement

It's not as easy as it looks to determine which schools are doing better than others. Two different criteria are relevant: is the difference in performance between two schools large enough to matter, which is sometimes termed educational significance or practical significance; and is the difference in performance between two schools real, or could it just be due to chance, which is typically described as statistical significance. Ideally, we are interested in differences that are both practically and statistically significant. But a difference could be large, but not statistically significant (which is often the case when we have a small sample of information about performance), or statistically significant, but very small (in which we are pretty sure that the difference is real, but it's just not very important). (Yes, statistical significance does matter!)

Our goal as educators should be to veer from an equal learning experience toward an equitable learning experience. Our job is to make sure all students have a fair, and possibly unequal, learning experience. Ensuring that each student has a fair opportunity to succeed means that one student's path may look very different from another's.

Making data part of instructional planning can be challenging, especially if teachers are not used to thinking about assessment and data as a regular part of the process. This article offers helpful tips.

The primary purpose of the pro­active schoolwide discipline plan is to create a positive, safe, supportive, and welcoming environment for all students and staff. Once this environment is established, teachers and educators are in a stronger position to provide instruction.

How to build a data warehouse that unifies your information infrastructure and meets the new accountability demands head-on