Overview: Standards for Data Use
Just as the education system is now driven by student standards -- what students should know and be able to do – there are also important education leadership standards -- what principals should know and be able to do to lead a successful school building. Leadership standards have come in several forms over the past few years, including, but not limited to, the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) leadership standards, and the Education Leaders Constituents Council (ELCC) standards for advanced programs in educational leadership. These standards are a documented set of skills that the field has deemed necessary to be a high quality education leader. With respect to data-informed decision-making, there are specific standards that relate to the skills and behaviors needed by leaders to effectively use data in their school.
State Level Data Standards
School practices related to data use are often driven by the policy context and standards set by the state and district. As a result these state and district policies must be analyzed to ensure they are supporting a high standard of data use at the school level—not hindering it. Because schools are the primary users of student assessment results provided through the state assessment and district assessments, district leaders must be clear about the standards and expectations of schools to use the results for student diagnosis. Schools also construct their own measures that they may use in data analysis, such as classroom tests, benchmark assessments and mastery projects for students.
State leaders and policy organizations are responsible for creating, setting and putting into policy the standards for school leaders (including elements of data use), the accreditation policies for school leadership training programs (including the need to have training in data use), and the assessment and data systems that provide the needed data elements for school leaders to use. They also have responsibility to fund state data systems adequately and ensure that the data come back to the principals in a timely, accurate and user-friendly manner (so that practitioners can meet the standards for data use!). States with school improvement approaches should provide local educators with strategies to use data for school improvement.
1. Essential Elements
The Education Leaders Constituents Council NCATE/ELCC state leadership program accreditation standards suggest leaders must know how to:- Steward a vision through effective communication, using data-based research strategies to regularly monitor, evaluate and revise the vision
- Apply best practice to student learning using appropriate research strategies to promote an environment for improved student achievement
- Design comprehensive professional growth plans that have a commitment to context- appropriate content, adult learning strategies and reflect a commitment to lifelong learning
- Manage the organization through organizational development and management strategies such as effective data-driven decisionmaking, human and financial resource management, student safety, as well as the deploying of such resources
- Manage resources through new technologies and using problem-solving skills and long-range and operational planning
- Collaborate with families and other community members through outreach, understanding community relations models and engaging them in the decisionmaking process.
- Understand information sources, data collection and data-analysis strategies
- Understand curriculum design, implementation, evaluation and refinement
- Understand measurement, evaluation and assessment strategies
- Understand the change process for systems, organization and individuals
- Understand current technologies that support management functions.
2. Promising Practices
Michigan’s Coalition of Educational Leadership (SAELP) has created Data Informed Decision-making: A Guidebook for Data Points and Analyses in the Context of Michigan School Improvement Framework. The guidebook takes the strands, standards and benchmarks from the framework and provides two examples of data point and data analysis for each benchmark. It also provides data that are summative, decision-oriented, need-based and that cater to a wide range of audiences.
The most important lesson learned from the creation of the guidebook is that it has to be connected with state-level policy. In this case, it's the Michigan School Improvement Framework. Principals, professional associations, and partner universities all expressed that the guidebook has to be connected to the Michigan Framework. The Michigan SAELP team listened and acted upon their advice. Therefore, the guidebook is not only a useful tool to augment the state-level policy, but also capitalizes on the state-wide policy to infuse data-informed decision-making into practice. Michigan uses the guidebook to help with practitioners' work on school improvement. The guidebook also provides curriculum materials for leadership training in universities and professional association.
The guidebook is an example on how the standards (i.e., the guidebook aligned with the Michigan School Improvement Framework), training (university programs and professional association's professional development), and conditions (a tool in the hands of practitioners) come together. It's really the cohesive leadership system as defined by The Wallace Foundation, and has valuable implications for school districts and schools. Through the interplay among the state policy/condition, feedback from the ground (four school districts and 16 principals), and MI SAELP II, the state has infused data-informed decisionmaking into practice across the state.
Georgia has started helping districts use a Balanced Scorecard (BSC) to guide schools' continuous improvement efforts. BSCs were originally developed for business use to take into account a broad range of measures – including results, processes, organizational development and financial data. This range of measures captures both “leading” and “lagging” indicators so adjustments can be made to ensure targets are met. State assessment results are “lagging” indicators, while district-administered benchmark tests are “leading” indicators. Measuring both, while also paying attention to organizational processes such as curriculum and instruction, gives education leaders a wide range of measures and data for continuous improvement.
The BSC process in Georgia begins with an organization's mission and vision statements, and translates these statements into a set of performance measures and metrics. It defines, measures, and monitors data that are often overlooked, resulting in a more complete and robust picture. The BSC measures a variety of criteria allowing school districts to use data in a new way and discover causes and effects that might otherwise have gone unnoticed. BSC data can be used to undertake root cause analysis of identified deficiencies, involve the school board and the community in developing solutions and communicate the goals, mission, and vision to all stakeholders, including students.
For more information, see the GLISI website.
3. Critical Questions
- Does your state have specific education leadership standards? And do those standards include a component for data use?
- Are the standards performance based?
- How are leaders measured against those standards? How are they evaluated on the data use component?
- Are the standards aligned to certification and professional development requirements?
- What are the data analysis skills required of a high-quality school and district leader (principal, superintendent and school board member)? Are those skills embedded in the standards?
- What rewards, incentives and sanctions should be associated with evaluation results?
- Do the universities in the state adequately prepare school leaders to use data wisely?
- Does the state have adequate data systems and warehouses that make reporting to schools and districts seamless and easy to understand?
- Does the state get data to districts and schools in a timely way so that educators can make instructional decisions for students?
4. State Resources
Policy Inventories
Education Commission of the States
ECS Database on State Actions relating to leadership standards
Education Commission of the States
Policy scan on different types of leadership standards
Education Leadership Policy Standards. As adopted by the National Policy Board for Educational Administration. Available from The Wallace Foundation website. Supporting research can be found at the Council of Chief State School Officers site.
Data Quality Campaign. The Data Quality Campaign (DQC) is a national, collaborative effort to encourage and support state policymakers to improve the collection, availability, and use of high-quality education data, and implement state longitudinal data systems to improve student achievement.
Breiter, A., & Light, D. (2006). Data for school improvement: Factors for designing effective information systems to support decision-making in schools. Educational Technology & Society, 9(3), 206-217. Summary: Describes the process of data driven decision making in schools, and the potential of new technologies to meet the informational needs of educators at different levels of the system.
Council of Chief State School Officers. Administrative Data Improvement Project. The Administrative Data Improvement project provides resources and technical assistance to state education agencies for data system improvements and participation in federal data collection efforts.
Cooley, V.E., J. Shen, D.S. Miller, P.N. Winograd, J.M. Rainey, W. Yuan, and L. Ryan. (2006) Increasing Leaders' Capacity in Data-based Decision-making: State Level Initiatives in Ohio, New Mexico and Michigan. Educational Horizons, 85 (1), 57-64. Summary: This report highlights three state-level initiatives around data-based decisionmaking.
Darling-Hammond, Linda, M. LaPointe, D. Myserson, and M. Orr. (2007) Preparing School Leaders for a Changing World: Lessons from Exemplary Leadership Development Programs. Stanford, CA: Stanford University, Stanford Educational Leadership Institute. Summary: The study examines eight exemplary pre- and in-service principal development programs. The study highlights key findings and provides implications for policy and practice and policymakers.