At the onset of the 21st century, the United States ushered in a new era of school accountability and reform with the No Child Left Behind Act [NCLB] (United States Department of Education, 2010). Until and unless it is repealed or replaced, this law continues in effect today, with many states now applying to renew their NCLB waivers (Klein,…

Education data can empower educators, students, parents, and policymakers with the information they need to make the best decisions to improve student achievement, information that can move the nation toward an education system in which every student graduates prepared for college and career. Safeguarding the privacy of student data is a critical…

This document is the first installment of this Forum (National Forum on Education Statistics) series of guides on longitudinal data systems (LDS). This book focuses on the fundamental questions of what an LDS is (and what it is not), what steps should be taken to achieve a sound system, what components make up an ideal system, and why such a…

Using data to improve educational practice in schools has become a popular reform strategy that has grown as a result of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Districts and schools across the United States are under a great deal of pressure to collect and analyze data in hopes of identifying student weaknesses to implement corrective action plans…

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 put great pressure to improve student achievement upon principals. Because the principals' work is much more complex since NCLB, it demands a more sophisticated set of skills and understandings than ever before. This qualitative case study examined changes in the principal's role and how current accountability…

The No Child Left Behind Act increases pressure on schools and districts to use standardized state test data. Seeking to learn about the process of turning accountability data into actionable information, this paper presents findings from three case studies of small to medium sized school districts. The study examines the flow of state science…

The newly revised Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA 2001) has sweeping implications for how states collect, analyze, and use data about school and system performance. Policymakers must take a hard look at the design and capacity of their states' data systems, and determine what changes will have to be made to meet the requirements of…

Over the past five years, the No Child Left Behind Act, with its mandates for collecting and documenting student achievement statistics, has fueled a surge in the volume of data collected by schools, districts, and state education departments. This information explosion has gone hand in hand with technology's growing affordability and…

Student information systems, one of the first applications of computer technology in education, are undergoing a significant transition yet again. The first major shift in SIS technologies occurred about 15 years ago when they evolved from mainframe programs to client-server solutions. Now, vendors across the board are offering centralized…

Since the inception of the No Child Left Behind legislation, school districts have been faced with a growing need to gather, analyze and monitor more data than ever before in the management of school performance. Accountability mandates also have placed a greater emphasis on gleaning the most granular types of information from these large sources…

For some districts, the current obsession with data grows out of the need to comply with No Child Left Behind and additional accountability-related mandates. For others, it dates way back before the phrase "data-driven decision making" rolled so frequently off the tongues of educators. In either case, there is no denying that an integral…

Under Deputy Secretary of Education Michael Golden's leadership, Pennsylvania has made great strides over the last two years developing useful informational tools to assist the Commonwealth's many school districts. While the School District of Philadelphia, along with the other districts, has worked collaboratively with the Commonwealth in this…

The Chief Information Officer (CIO) at the U.S. Department of Education (ED) has primary responsibility to ensure that Information Technology (IT) is acquired and information resources are managed in a manner consistent with statutory, regulatory, and Departmental requirements and priorities. This Department Information Resource Management (IRM)…