Measuring Educational Performance for Improvement: A Framework for Diagnostic Use of Data

Educators and policymakers are often implored to be “data driven,” but in practice they are drowning in data that may be of limited value for the decisions they need to make. REL Mid-Atlantic has worked with state and local education agencies to develop, refine, and stress-test measures of school performance that provide actionable diagnostic information. In this free webinar, the director of REL Mid-Atlantic presents a new framework for making sense of school performance measures, informed by our collaborative work with state and local agencies. Commentary is provided by a panel of experts and stakeholders from the Council of Chief State School Officers, the Aspen Institute, and the Office of the State Superintendent of Education of the District of Columbia. We discuss new measures to examine student achievement growth in grades K-3, school climate, social-emotional learning, and the impact of high schools on postsecondary outcomes—all among a range of measures that might be used purely for informational purposes or as part of a formal accountability system in accordance with the Every Student Succeeds Act. The framework can help policymakers identify the ways that different measures of school performance are useful—or not—for different policy purposes.

Our panel, moderated by Carolyn Phenicie of the Council of Chief State School Officers, includes:

• Brian Gill, Project Director, REL Mid-Atlantic
• Donna Johnson, Director of Accountability, DC Office of the State Superintendent of Education
• Evan Kramer, Assistant Superintendent of Data, Assessment, and Research, DC Office of the State Superintendent of Education
• Gene Pinkard, Director, Education and Society Program, The Aspen Institute