Data-driven decision making and the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) were the focus of a conference held April 8 in Washington, D.C.

Sponsored by the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), the event featured national lawmakers as well as educators and other stakeholders who have a vested interest in seeing children succeed in the classroom.

A primary emphasis at the conference: how to go beyond the mere collection of data to developing effective methods for using those data to advance student achievement.

For years, schools have collected student achievement data primarily by way of standardized tests, which students take as required on an annual or bi-annual basis. These days, educators say, those metrics--while still important--provide neither time nor detail enough to address the individual needs of students, a problem compounded by the accountability demands set forth under NCLB.

Instead of relying on summative assessments merely as a rite of passage to the next grade level, school leaders now say they need more comprehensive data that can be accessed incrementally--anytime, anywhere--so teachers and parents can intervene before their students fall behind.

Helen Soule, special assistant in the Office of Postsecondary Education for the U.S. Department of Education, called data-driven decision making "a powerful tool for improving student achievement" that is essential in meeting the rigorous demands of the federal law.

"You need at your fingertips timely, relevant, accurate, and continuous access to all data," Soule said.

That's what administrators at Community Consolidated School District 15 in suburban Chicago set out to have through a partnership with IBM Corp. The result: a data-warehousing solution that now tracks more than 249 variables on everything from student achievement to school bus service and classroom cleanliness. According to retired district superintendent John Conyers, Big Blue built the platform using one simple guiding principle: "If it moves, measure it."

Aside from monitoring student test scores incrementally in the classroom, the district also tracks student demographics and churns out other data indirectly related to learning, such as school lunch status and the timeliness of bus routes. District officials are so enamored with data, they even use their current information system to evaluate the quality of custodial service in classrooms. The better shape the rooms are in, Conyers reasoned, the fewer distractions there are to keep children from reaching their full potential.

Leading indicators

Before data-driven decision making and the advent of anytime, anywhere assessment, Conyers said schools routinely used "lagging indicators" that assessed student knowledge too far down the learning curve to allow for any significant improvements.