The 2020 General Assembly directed the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) to develop a plan for implementing a statewide survey of institutional expenditures by program and academic discipline at Virginia's public higher education institutions, and submit a report and recommendations to the Governor and the Chairs of the House…

States invest heavily in education, providing funding either directly or in the form of financial aid from preschool through college, with positive outcomes from those impacting nearly every other area of public policy, particularly the workforce. To understand and assess results, states collect and analyze information about these investments at…

Student perspectives reflect school climate. The study examined perspectives among deaf and hard of hearing students in residential and large day schools regarding bullying, and compared these perspectives with those of a national database of hearing students. The participants were 812 deaf and hard of hearing students in 11 U.S. schools. Data…

This project assesses the feasibility of creating a voluntary, nationwide data dictionary that can be used to standardize the reporting of postsecondary accountability reporting requirements for the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006 (otherwise known as Perkins IV). Variables, field codes, and programming instructions,…

Now that all 50 states and the District of Columbia are building statewide longitudinal data systems, the next step is to ensure that the information in these systems is used to improve student learning. The Data Quality Campaign (DQC) has identified 10 actions that states can take to ensure that the right data are available and accessible and…

With the proliferation of social indicator databases, the need for powerful techniques to study patterns of change has grown. In this paper, the utility of spatial data analytical methods such as exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) is suggested as a means to leverage the information contained in social indicator databases. The principles…

This chapter describes the development of a state-level student tracking system that enables the state and institutions to follow various cohort types of students across institutional boundaries. The system was developed by the Policy Research and Data Warehousing section of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV). SCHEV is the…

Experiences in systems-development for state information systems are summarized for eight pilot-test state agencies, as part of the State Level Information Base project. Attention is directed to the evaluation of information needs; hardware and software choices; survey administration; data organization, storage, and linkages; and staffing…

Business intelligence derived from data warehousing and data mining has become one of the most strategic management tools today, providing organizations with long-term competitive advantages. Business school curriculums and popular database textbooks cover data warehousing, but the examples and problem sets typically are small and unrealistic. The…

This report presents the Virginia edition of the National Council on Teacher Quality's 2008 "State Teacher Policy Yearbook." The 2008 "Yearbook" focuses on how state policies impact the retention of effective new teachers. This policy evaluation is broken down into three areas that encompass 15 goals. Broadly, these goals…

This report presents a blueprint for attracting, developing, and retaining skilled and diverse teachers who effectively increase the achievement of all of Virginia's students. The five recommendations are to: (1) develop a comprehensive database to support Virginia's commitment to teacher quality; (2) expand recruitment initiatives to attract…

Experiences of pilot-test state agencies in developing an information system are summarized, as part of the State Level Information Base project. The background and functions of each of the eight pilot-test state agencies are described, along with the information systems approach, and planning responsibilities (comprehensive planning, budgeting,…