The School Role
Schools administer the state and district assessments and have additional measures of their own. Schools may analyze student work, create their own tests to monitor student progress and use a number of assessments for student placement. Principals may use “walk throughs” (brief assessments of instructional practices going on in a classroom) to monitor teaching and learning in a school. Climate surveys may be given to teachers and parents to learn more about perceptions of how well the school is doing. Standards-based report cards are another measure that schools use to report how well students are learning.
States, school districts and schools that gather, analyze and use information about their systems and organizations make better decisions, not only about what to improve, but also about how to institutionalize system improvement. State policymakers use data to foster school improvement strategies, allocate resources, identify and share best practices and hold schools and districts accountable for student learning. Districts use data to monitor student achievement, school success, the effectiveness of programs and allocate resources to ensure individual student needs can be met. Schools use data to assess student progress, the effectiveness of instructional strategies, target professional development target resources. States, districts and schools that use data in a comprehensive manner understand the effectiveness of their continuous improvement efforts; those that do not use data can only assume that effectiveness.