This tool and its supporting resources are intended to help education leaders understand and assess equitable access data to support a root-cause analysis and, ultimately, draft a State Plan to Ensure Equitable Access to Excellent Educators. The activities in this tool introduce metrics, address staff capacity for analyzing equitable access data,…

Never before has the link between a college education and postgraduate job prospects been more important. College graduates are employed more often and, on average, earn significantly more than those without college degrees. During recent years, as students have moved into a challenging job market, a college education has remained the most…

Education data are growing in quantity, quality, and value. When appropriately used to guide action, data can be a powerful tool for improving school operations, teaching, and learning. Education stakeholders who possess the knowledge, skills, and abilities to appropriately access, analyze, and interpret data will be able to use data to take…

This guide is designed to inform school directors about the value of a data dashboard and to provide information on how districts can create a data dashboard for school directors. A data dashboard is a tool for viewing and analyzing student achievement and performance data. Key data for monitoring student achievement and directing policy level…

Provides information regarding the National Educational Longitudinal Study database that was used for many of the studies in this volume. Provides relevant background and instructions so that others may use this resource from the National Center for Education Statistics. (Author/EV)

Presents 10 questions that development officers should be able to answer from their database and the powerful implications this data mining has for both annual and major giving programs. Discusses development officers' increasing need for in-house expertise in data analysis. (EV)

This guide is intended to assist planners in developing and using labor market and occupational information when assessing the need for and planning occupational training programs. The first chapter discusses the responsibilities of various federal, state, and local entities for developing labor market information. Special attention is given to…

For student rating data to be useful in improving college teaching, consultants and faculty need to know how different evaluative purposes effect evaluation results, and they must be able to interpret and use the data at hand. A series of steps should be followed to help ensure valid data interpretation. (MSE)

The data collected in higher education research are not always quantitative or continuous. Statistical methods using the log-linear model provide the institutional researcher with a powerful set of tools for addressing research questions when data are categorical. (Author/MSE)

This report examines how Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) sites used data to plan reforms and assess reform success, noting where and how they gathered data. Chapter 1, "The Need for Data," discusses: assessing data utilization, using data to enhance communication, and using this report to support reform. Chapter 2,…

High schools are increasingly expected to use data for improvement and to provide evidence that programs and instructional practices are preparing all students to develop essential knowledge and skills. This publication describes how schools can develop the capacity to analyze and use data as a core component of improving secondary schools using…

Designed for language teachers who find reading statistical research difficult but necessary, this article focuses on the minimal knowledge needed about statistical techniques for interpreting research findings. It first examines the statistical reasoning underlying quantitative, empirical studies, including normal distribution, standard…

The results from high-stakes assessments have often been used to merely grade and rank schools and students. But a new trend is emerging, according to this brief. Educators are beginning to see the power of using assessment data to improve instruction. This brief discusses ways to use data to improve instruction at the school, classroom, and…

Targeted to mental retardation/developmental disability (MR/DD) and vocational rehabilitation agencies, developmental disabilities councils, consumer and advocate groups, and protection and advocacy programs, this manual is designed to assist in the development of state-level data systems responsive to current accountability requirements. It also…

This practical manual is designed as a guide for those working with one or more of the National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS) data sets. Section 1 is a discussion of the sample design, sampling methodology, and field procedures used during the surveys of each NLS cohort. Weighting, sample representativeness, and attrition are discussed, and a series…