Strategic Data Project Convening 2019

Measures of student growth offer a richer understanding of student performance than a one-time test score alone, but measures of student growth are not created equal. In response to public demand for more information about school quality and student success, most states are holding schools accountable for “student growth” and including this information on school report cards. But states are measuring growth in different ways, which tell different stories about schools, and they are made up of a series of calculations that aren’t always intuitive to the average consumer of data. To make sense of what this data reveals about school quality, and use it to inform decisions that improve student outcomes, everyone—from parents to policymakers—needs to be able to understand their school’s growth data.

During this interactive workshop, participants will learn about the national landscape for how growth data is being measured and reported for state accountability by hearing select findings from the Data Quality Campaign’s brief "Growth Data: It Matters, and It’s Complicated," and its third annual analysis of school report cards, "Show Me the Data." Participants will then brainstorm communications strategies and practice explaining growth measures to various audiences, including policymakers, teachers, and parents. The session will conclude with a group discussion. Participants will reflect and share with colleagues their experiences with how school-level growth data is used in practice in their state or district, envision how they hope it will be used, and identify related actions they can take to support everyone’s ability to talk about and use this data to drive improvements.

Please bring your laptop or another mobile device for this participatory session.

Delivering value in higher education closely tracks with the strength of a graduate’s workforce outcomes & an institution’s propensity to respond to its regional needs. This project examined higher education’s traditional path to track graduates in light of new technologies. It reflects the collaborative work with key partners to design a process to link student records to workforce outcomes outside of bureaucracy and revealed three ways such a democratic connection answers the question how does education link to work?

First-generation college students from low-income backgrounds are enrolling in college at higher rates than ever before. But what steps can be taken to close the persistence gap? In Louisiana, the University of Louisiana Lafayette (UL) is piloting an evidence-based program for eligible first-generation, low-income students from New Orleans public high schools. This capstone discussion involves an evaluative case study of the program’s first year, including a discussion of the mixed-methods approach, engagement with key stakeholders, and the development of actionable output for university personnel and community partners.

Highlander Institute has a mission to improve educator and system capacity to provide personalized experiences for every learner. But how do you measure success in personalized learning?
SDP Fellow Danielle Blasczak worked to refine, supplement, calibrate, validate and disseminate a tool consisting of 28 indicators within 4 prioritized domains. This work has enabled Highlander Institute to better able to triangulate data between classroom observations and student achievement scores while continuing to scale quality practices.
Join this conversation to engage in a discussion about maintaining measurement consistency in an ever-changing personalized learning landscape.

Creating cultures of continuous improvement is no easy feat. This session will focus on three case studies that present strategies for shifting mindsets and building data culture. First, Kevin Hoffman from Aspire Public Schools will share Aspire’s efforts to become a learning organization steeped in inquiry by using the framework in Learning to Improve. Next, Kristen Rohanna from the UCLA Partner School Network will share how they strategically encourage teachers in their network to collect asset-based student data for their disciplined inquiry work. The purpose of these data is to shift educator mindsets around what it means to engage students in mathematics. Finally, Karen Tzong and Sharon Bi from Santa Ana Unified School District will share their low-lift strategy “Data Espressos” to engage stakeholders in data inquiry and initiate changes in their agency.

Join SDP Alumni for a critical conversations session about studies, analyses, and experiments that failed to create usable data, were never conducted, were never presented due to organizational or political pressure, or evolved into a completely different study. Rarely do we talk candidly about all the times we failed, and how we overcame barriers to better use data to inform policy and practice. At SDP’s 10th Anniversary, there is no better time to bring forward some of these "failures" and talk about how they resulted in new learnings, generated new practices, and spurred new research. Attendees will leave the session with examples of “failures” across five agencies that resulted in new research or policies that moved the conversation forward. The presenters will share their experiences of how they created action from failure, and how it catalyzed later success. This discussion will highlight strategies for advancing rigorous data analysis to improve the quality of decision-making in educational agencies. This session seeks to leave the attendee with a greater understanding of how the research process unfolds, and how unexpected roadblocks can result in stronger results down the line. The audience will be given time to reflect on their own challenges, brainstorm strategies to work around barriers, and develop next steps for addressing similar challenges in their agencies, in addition to having ample time to ask and answer questions.

This interactive session will focus on the college-going outcomes for Fulton County Schools over the past 7 years through the district’s first college-going dashboard. During the presentation, participants will discuss dashboard creation and usability, and will also have an opportunity to identify and discuss interventions to answer the question: how can the district move its seamless enrollment rate beyond its 7-year average?

Aspiring teachers participating in the Urban Teacher preparation program each receive a host teacher. When structured interviews with alumni of the program on school climate yielded unprompted responses around the importance of the host teacher on their experience, it became necessary to learn more about the host teacher – participant relationship, including attempts to corroborate the data quantitatively and modifications to the host teacher survey to elicit additional information. This roundtable will include findings for improving the selection and training of host teachers in teacher preparation programs.

Cohort 9 Fellows will learn what it means to be an alum, offer their feedback on the fellowship experience, and say "thank-you" and "until next time" to their cohort-mates.