With many cities showing an interest in afterschool system building and research providing a growing body of useful information, this Wallace Perspective offers a digest of the latest thinking on how to build and sustain an afterschool system, and the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for this promising work. The report (a follow-up to a…

When the author and his colleagues last left Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and Texas' Plano Independent School District in April 2008, both school districts were immersed in the long and labored advance toward becoming a fully matured data-driven operation, one that uses sophisticated technologies to gather data, sort and interpret it, and…

The kind of data useful to a statewide planning agency is considered, with focus on Illinois, and attention is directed to the use of these data once generated, including resulting problems. Illinois is currently engaged in the conceptual design of a computerized management information system that will contain as a subset the State Level…

Pursuant to developing an interactive system for planning and managing vocational education programs, the project focused on methods of obtaining student supply and manpower demand information. The goal was to operationalize a student data base that would facilitate planning and regulatory requirements of the Illinois Department of Adult,…

Reported here is the completed phase 2 of a program designed to develop a comprehensive integrated system that will produce information for planning and administrating Illinois vocational education programs. Phase 2 project activities were intended to further develop and refine the Illinois Vocational Management Information System (MIS) and to…