Data is Extremely Powerful

A side benefit of staying home during the pandemic is that my wife and I, being empty nesters, seem to be eating at a more regular time each evening. Our daily routine has evolved into this: Sitting down around our kitchen island at 6:00 or so, one of us grabs the remote, the other serves the food, and we fire up a quick episode of Cheers on Netflix. Then, when finishing up our meal, we either flip to the evening news and discuss the latest that happened that day, or share what we had heard throughout the day regarding the strange times we live in. This ultimately leads to our sharing what we heard about “the latest data” that tells the story of our times. Is the infection rate and death rate accelerating at a dangerous level, or has it started to flatten? What do the medical data experts say will happen if we open up our communities to fast? What do the economists say will happen to our GDP if we open up the economy too slow? The various experts and pundits all have their own thoughts and strategies on how to fight this invisible enemy, and sometimes even fighting about the accuracy of the data. However, one area where there does seem to be the most agreement is that the use of data is extremely powerful – and will continue to be - to thwart the virus. In fact, besides finding a vaccine, many physicians and scientists proclaim that effectively responding to data may be our best weapon to beating COVID-19. Yes, good, accurate data is necessary to tell the story and to evaluate our progress. 

Student learning objectives might seem intimidating, but with the right approach and support from peers, any district can implement SLOs that will help students (and teachers) grow. This is why Eidex hosted a series of workshops dedicated to sharing tips and tricks that we’ve picked up from years of experience in education and knowledge-sharing with peers. Keep reading to review some of the guidelines we covered for starting and keeping up with student learning objectives. ​

When multiple data sets are brought together into one space, multiple perspectives can be brought to life. Now, administrators can triangulate data to easily identify areas of focus. PRISM does just that and even provides multiple granularity levels to aggregate or disaggregate the data to create solutions for specific problem areas such as strategic planning, building goals, interventions, attendance trends, and behavior data.

Take a look at the infographic below which provides just one example of how PRISM might be used. Each granularity level represents a piece of the puzzle which makes up a school district. This puzzle, however, creates whatever picture a district is looking for, thus providing context to different student stories! ​

In this series, we sit down with educators across the nation and ask them about their journeys in public education, their passion for helping students, their everyday struggles, and how they have used data to overcome those struggles. Our first guest to be featured is Michelle Blaszczynski from Greenville Public Schools. Read more to learn about her genuine story and experience as both a teacher and an administrator, and her unique insights on the use of data analytics in public education.

Budget planning is an important activity that almost all types of organizations go through each year. For school districts, budgeting allows leaders to drive growth and address areas of improvements by allocating resources to prioritize certain school needs. The nature of an effective budget is driven and informed by data. As long-time data enthusiasts, we put our heads together here at Eidex to outline in 3 steps how your district can seamlessly integrate data into budget planning, preparation, and evaluation.

1. Planning involves setting goals and objectives, and developing programs needed to achieve those goals and objectives. During this phase of the budgeting process, data about where the district is currently and where it wants to be in the next year can be extremely beneficial in providing guidance for setting SMART goals. Here are a couple of examples:

• A district examined historical performance on the state assessment compared to peers with similar socioeconomics. Leadership team then realized that their students are performing slightly worse than the peer average. At this point, they set a goal to improve proficiency to outperform the current peer average in the next year. As a result, the team can start planning for programs that will help the district achieve this goal and inform the budget allocation process later.

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires schools and districts identified for comprehensive support and improvement (CSI) to complete a needs assessment. Aside from this requirement, however, any school or district can hugely benefit from the implementation of a strong needs assessment.

​As the old saying goes there are two things we all have to look forward to….death and taxes. As a K-12 school administrator we can add one more thing…..negotiations. As negotiations are unavoidable, it is important for a district to utilize “best practices” on a consistent basis to achieve the best and most transparent result for all parties in the process.  Presented below are a series of best practices that a district may utilize to maintain efficiency and transparency throughout the negotiations process. These are not meant to be a complete list, as each district will have unique issues to deal with and include in their negotiations process.

Overall Best Practices for A Successful Negotiations

• Information sharing
• Benchmarking
• Budget information
• Data collection/peer district comparisons
• Contract review and summary
• The Negotiations Roadmap Checklist