by Heinz Sladek

Created on: July 31, 2008   Last Updated: August 04, 2008

For an educational institution to be successful, data-driven decision-making must be employed in making decisions on, programs, policies, and individual student needs. Schools must integrated detailed data collection, and analysis, in order to formulate plans for the future and current improvement needs. Schools that use data-driven decision-making have both teachers and administrators who know how to analyze data in order to identify areas that need improvement, to distribute resources, and to communicate with the community being served by the school. These educators know that concrete data is the key to measuring achievement and targeting essential decisions based on improvement needs. As a result of the school reform movement, schools have become more dependent on data to make decisions and to track student success. This reform movement gained momentum back in the 1980s with the A Nation at Risk report under the Reagan administration, and has now evolved into the 2001 legislation called No Child Left Behind.

It does not matter what state a person lives in, all states are being charged with the responsibility for standardized testing to assess student achievement and to assess the performance of its schools in making Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), per the federal government. Schools are asking their teachers to work hard at assuring that students pass the annual standardized tests that usually take place in the Spring. Reports are sent to federal officials, state officials, district officials and campus officials once the test results come in and then months are spent analyzing the data, looking at such things as individual student groups, comparing the progress of special needs students, and looking at graduation rates. All of these factors along with other factors are used to determine whether or not a school district, school administrators, and teachers are being successful in educating our nation's children. Additionally, federal funding is provided to schools based on data collected and resources are distributed accordingly.

Data reaches far beyond standardized tests. Most schools have implemented a system of benchmark testing that takes place throughout the school year and usually happens around the end of either a term or semester. These benchmark tests are used by schools to determine which students are at risk for failing the upcoming standardized tests, and then additional tutorials are provided to these students, or teachers are called in to go

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