While working in the Social and Emotional Support Services (SESS) for Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland (MCPS), the author initiated a project to collect data on services to students with emotional needs. During the 2016-2017 school year, MCPS was the 17th largest school district in the country with nearly 160,000 students speaking 150…

K-12 education standards in the U.S. require all students to read complex texts across many subject areas. The "Language Muse™ Activity Palette" is a web-based language-instruction application that uses NLP algorithms and lexical resources to automatically generate language activities and support English language learners' content…

This discussion paper explores the possibilities and risks that data linkage presents for the vocational education and training (VET) sector. Along with a broad overview of the nature of data linkage, it highlights possible applications for data linkage in the VET sector and examines the key challenges associated with its use. A number of case…

Like seemingly everyone else connected to K12 education, vendors that offer student information systems are being called upon to do more with less. Where past generations of these systems focused on nuts and bolts such as time, attendance and behavioral issues, the latest generation has created--and drawn inspiration from--districts' desires for…

In December 2008, with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and in partnership with the Data Quality Campaign, the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) hosted a meeting of the West's key leaders in building state-wide integrated longitudinal data systems. Such data systems are essential to developing a better…

Describes how to build a data warehouse, using the Schools Interoperability Framework (www.sifinfo.org), that supports data-driven decision making and complies with the Freedom of Information Act. Provides several suggestions for building and maintaining a data warehouse. (PKP)

Describes the implementation of a FOCUS, a fourth-generation language (4GL) database management system for the St. Louis (Missouri) Public Schools, that allows for the analysis of individual department or school files and the districtwide file. (MLF)

The paper describes the Special Education Data Management System (SEDMS), an approach which provides flexibility in meeting changing data requirements and which can generate reports in a reliable manner. Further, SEDMS is operable by a non-programer within a multi-user environment. SEDMS checks the validity of entries to ensure against inaccurate…

Teacher education programs nationwide are required by state and federal governments to maintain comprehensive student records of all current and graduated students in their programs. A private, mid-sized university established a faculty team to analyze record-keeping procedures to comply with these government requirements. The team's mandate was…

Describes role of school business officials in complying with No Child Left Behind Act's mandated use of school and student data. Includes data mining for educators and information technology solutions. (PKP)

Focuses on the major issues faced by a school district throughout the implementation of a financial management information system. Describes how commercially available software was tailored to the specific needs of a Virginia school district. (MLF)

This report describes a data management process that provides users with a systematic approach to document identification, and to information storage and retrieval using the AppleWorks database subprogram and a simple organizational scheme. The functions of this scheme are described and include: (1) taking the user from general to specific…

Describes a program for enrollment projections in sufficient detail to communicate the output generated and techniques utilized. Interspersed with the text are 14 tables. (MLF)

To meet growing demands for collecting and using quality information for decision-making, many U.S. school districts are developing database systems that increase their responsiveness to schools and communities. This paper describes how Long Beach Unified School District (California) designed and implemented a Database Management Information…

Both generic and specialized database programs can be used by physical educators to manage their student performance data. General guidelines are presented to assist physical educators in evaluating and selecting management programs to meet their specific needs in such areas as equipment, program parameters, data entry, reports, quality, control,…