This article details the process the authors--a doctoral student at the time, and a faculty member--engaged in to change the ways the University of Iowa (UI) asks for and reports student name, gender pronouns, sex, and gender identity. The UI Inclusive Student Records Initiative raises implications for practice and research. Two focus groups--one…

Faced with rising demand for information about early childhood programs, states need to find tools and strategies to monitor the progress of and to identify high-quality early childhood programs. In response, REL Mid-Atlantic convened a regional workgroup for state personnel who work with the systems containing early childhood data. The workgroup…

States have made dramatic progress in the past few years in implementing longitudinal data systems (LDS) to improve student achievement. These systems collect and house student educational data that make it easy for policymakers and practitioners to access and use it for reporting, policymaking and decision making. So much has happened in states…

Imagine if, at the start of the school year, a teacher could have detailed information about the academic history of every student in her or his classroom. This is possible if the teacher can log on to a Web site that provides access to an educational data warehouse. The teacher would see not only several years of state assessment results, but…

The Charleston County School District's efforts to increase the percentage of students meeting high school graduation requirements at the appropriate age and the percentage of students who graduate within 6 years of entry into grade 9 require a well-designed plan for monitoring their success. Evaluation of those efforts depends upon the use of…

This report describes a computer assisted process that resulted in the development of a comprehensive database of actual courses taken by undergraduates in teacher preparation programs for use in decision making about possible curriculum redesign for teacher education majors. The creation of the database required four stages: (1) selecting majors…