NCLB has changed the course of education by setting indelible, incremental goals that peak at 100-percent proficiency for all students in reading and mathematics by 2014. Failure results in school and district sanctions, and districts have responded by auditing instructional programs for alignment with state standards. As part of this review process, many districts have examined their assessment systems and developed district tests to help predict student achievement on end-of-year state tests. Districts also have searched for electronic programs that generate tests and, more importantly, store and disaggregate data for both state and local assessments.

For Snowline, a rural Southern California district of 8,000 students, ETS's Instructional Data Management System (IDMS) fit the need. Prior to using IDMS, district personnel invested hundreds of hours at the beginning of each school year compiling data into bulky district and school-site books. As the district grew, this work became too cumbersome, and administrators began searching for an electronic program that accomplished these tasks. About five years ago, we investigated programs that provided detailed analysis of state data, and IDMS accomplished that task for us.

But to me and my team, it became apparent that if Snowline were to meet NCLB goals, it needed more than just a state analysis program. To improve student achievement, we felt we needed to more closely monitor and adjust instruction. We realized we had to pace instruction, provide opportunities for teachers to build district assessments, and create practical data reports based on the assessments. IDMS was again the answer. The program integrates state data storage and management with interim assessment analysis, and it generates teacher reports for local tests. Data are now stored and analyzed in a web-based electronic program that all teachers and administrators can access.

First developed as a state analysis tool, IDMS became the instrument for ETS's Focus on Standards (FOS) instructional model. An integrated, five-step model, FOS fully aligns instructional improvement by emphasizing the teaching of essential state standards, calendaring these standards into pacing plans, periodically assessing instruction according to the pacing plans, engaging teachers in structured dialogue about the assessment data, and developing interventions based on teacher discussions about student achievement. IDMS was designed to provide meaningful data reports that teachers could use in these important, structured discussions.

Dave Winward, the curriculum assessment coordinator for Snowline, considers the program almost magical. "The FOS process, and especially the products produced by IDMS, are outstanding. They are exactly what teachers need to improve students' academic achievement."

Here's how the program works: Tests that are manufactured by Snowline teachers are calendared and tagged as they are entered into IDMS in electronic format. The student population is re-rostered according to the calendar to place students in current classes, and answer sheets are produced for each student taking each test by class. The answer documents are then distributed to the school sites and, as soon as testing is completed, collected for scanning. These documents are scanned, and the results are uploaded to ETS servers.