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less frequently is more valuable to educators than data collected several times throughout the year. The latter may prove perilous in two regards; first, overly-frequent data collection may compromise objectivity as educators steer their instruction toward positive test results, and second, over-testing students will provide less meaningful, if not skewed data.

Second, districts considering the many would-be assessment facilitators would be wise to examine the test instrument itself. Aside from answering obvious questions of compatibility with a district's existing computer and network hardware, the issue of student compatibility remains. Uniformity and ease of navigation are critical to students' success, especially in the elementary arena. Regardless of age or skill level, students are likely to be far less successful taking the test if they are spending cognitive time and energy discovering how to take the test.
Finally, coordinated data mining efforts must be easy to facilitate through the assessment tool's software. Score reporting should be immediate and easily accessible, as well as permanent and redundantly secure. A wide variety of reports should be available including analysis by strand, skill, grade, subject, teacher, student, subgroup. Such software suites have evolved from this shared perception of need, but to truly provide the level of information a district or building administration needs to make data driven decisions, clients should be able to access this information and integrate it across time spans of several years. For instance, while access to one company's reports suite answers the call for immediate access in terms of scope, there is one critical shortcoming. Teachers who leave their assignments in essence take their data with them. With this particular software, it is not possible to examine scores from years passed if the students' teacher has since moved on.
Once a standards-based assessment tool is selected and implemented, rounds of data are collected, reports are disseminated, and teaching goals and/or methods are revised, site-based administrators are charged with stewardship of the data driven decisions in light of the school's vision. Diligent observation of this duty requires more of the administrator than analyzing test data a few times a year, undergoing data mining projects, or delegating responsibility to data teams. In the testing "off seasons" that comprise the majority of a school year, informal observations or classroom

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