Despite enacting well-intentioned policies to improve teacher recruitment and retention, many states continue to face significant staffing challenges, particularly in high-need schools and hard-to-staff subjects such as math, science, and special education. Two years ago, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) set out to explore the…

California's information about opportunities and outcomes in early learning and care, TK-12 schools, colleges, social services, and employment is currently disconnected. A longitudinal data system can be a powerful tool that allows California to identify bright spots, inequities, and roadblocks in our educational system, especially for students of…

In 2019, California passed legislation that called for the creation of its longitudinal data system, the Cradle-to-Career (C2C) Data System. Since then, the state has allocated $40.52 million in funding to support the agency's efforts. Given the substantial state investment and the potential for more, better, and accessible data to answer critical…

Data-mining systems provide a variety of opportunities for school district personnel to streamline operations and focus on student achievement. This article describes the value of data mining for school personnel, finance departments, teacher evaluations, and in the classroom. It suggests that much could be learned about district practices if one…

As data-based decision making is receiving increased attention in education, more and more school performance feedback systems (SPFSs) are being developed and used worldwide. These systems provide schools with data on their functioning. However, little research is available on the characteristics of the different SPFSs. Therefore, this study…

Early education leaders--inside and outside of government--are looking for new ways to improve quality, accountability, and efficiency across many different programs serving young children and their families, and they see investment in data systems as a pivotal part of that effort. However, it can be challenging to develop and implement effective…

Purpose: This article seeks to address the interface between individual learning facilitators that use course management systems (CMS) data to support decision-making and course design and institutional infrastructure providers that are responsible for institutional business intelligence. Design/methodology/approach: The design of a data warehouse…

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…

As of 1993, Nevada had no systems for statewide automation and transfer of student records. This guide book presents findings of a collaborative study, conducted by the Nevada Department of Education and local school districts, that explored the need for and feasibility of developing a statewide system for automating and transferring student…

Outcomes of a project that implemented a management information system to effectively gather and record student data are presented in this practicum report. The project, implemented in the adult education department of a community college and its various offcampus locations, consisted of three components: a BASIC program to calculate students'…

This publication describes an evaluation design developed to assess school-to-work (STW) efforts throughout the Saginaw Valley STW Partnership area in Michigan. An introduction is followed by an overview of the aim of evaluation. Section 3 describes how the variables pertinent to the evaluation of the STW program initiative were identified,…

This report describes the development in 1986 of a management information system by the Sacramento City (California) Unified School District for use in high schools. A nine-page attachment, which comprises two-thirds of the report, offers profiles of selected schools drawn from the databases. Data sets of 200 information items, collected from all…

In response to the accountability movement, schools must develop appropriate data sources and use them for decision making. This paper describes a data-collection and data-analysis procedure that can be used at the school building level. The process uses software for survey administration and data analysis for conducting practical automated…

Institutional researchers play a key role in an environment where data warehouses are used to store and retrieve vast amounts of data. Along with the benefits of increased access for more users, improved reporting capabilities, and less reliance on centralized information, come questions of appropriate data usage, data access and security,…