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Concurrent Session X Presentations

Thursday, February 14, 2013
3:00 – 4:00


X-B Statewide Longitudinal Data System (SLDS) Eye Candy: How Utah Uses Data to Visualize Transitions of College Graduates Into Specific Industry Sectors Using Open-Source Software

Andrew Mingl and Ricardo Silva, Utah College of Applied Technology
John Brandt, Utah State Office of Education

This session will provide conference attendees step-by-step instructions on using open-source software tools to powerfully visualize postsecondary graduates by career cluster as they transition into specific industry workforce sectors and subsectors. Transform your boring statewide longitudinal data system (SLDS) Excel files into organic, eye-catching graphs for policymakers and administrators within your state. Using free, open-source software designed to map the relationship of chromosomes between species, the Utah Data Alliance is mapping the transition of postsecondary graduates from career pathways and clusters into specific industry and industry subsectors for better alignment of higher education and workforce.


X-C District Tools for Understanding, Calculating, and Managing Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rates

Bari Erlichson, New Jersey Department of Education
Jim McGlynn, PCG Education

In this session, participants will learn about the pathways taken by the New Jersey Department of Education to calculate four- and five-year-adjusted cohort graduation rates, manage and process student-level graduation appeals from local education agencies, and report on that data through NJ SMART, the statewide longitudinal data system. Participants will gain insight into the process for calculating the performance measure, the trainings that were developed to support and inform district personnel, and the reporting tools that have been deployed to help educators identify students who are at risk.


X-D Surfacing Data in Meaningful Ways: South Carolina’s Approach to Data for Parents, Teachers, Policymakers, and the Public

Paul Butler-Nalin, South Carolina Department of Education
Laurie Collins, UPD Consulting
Lori Fey, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation

By utilizing education data standards, the South Carolina Department of Education is providing data for a wide range of stakeholders—without starting from scratch. In this session, you will hear how existing data components and research are being revitalized to provide actionable information to decisionmakers across the educational spectrum.


X-E A Tool for Program Offices to Evaluate Their Data Quality Review Process: Early Lessons

Kelly Worthington, Noah Mann, Bobbi Stettner-Eaton, Richelle Davis, Darla Marburger, and Meredith Miceli, U.S. Department of Education

This session will describe current EDFacts Data Governance Board (EDGB) work around data quality, including a newly developed tool for program offices to examine and build systems for examining data quality. Presenters will discuss early program implementation of the EDGB tool. Program representatives will discuss how the tool was used to strengthen data-review procedures at the same time that the program’s data-review process transitioned from a grantee task to an "in-house" responsibility in the fall of 2012.

Download PowerPoint Presentation and Handout:

A Tool for Program Offices to Evaluate Their Data Quality Review Process: Early Lessons Microsoft PPT File (477 KB)
EDFacts Data Governance Board Data Quality Self-Assessment Tool MS Word (110 KB)


X-F Designing and Implementing Data-Driven Educational Solutions for the District and State

Ron Kleinman, SIF Association
Alex Jackl, Choice Solutions, Inc.
William Hurwitch, Maine Department of Education
Laurel Ballard, Wyoming Department of Enterprise Technology Services
Peter Tamayo, Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction

This session identifies the real-world challenges to successfully integrating a set of diverse educational applications into a single, unified data solution, and provides attendees with the necessary techniques to address them. Areas covered include 1) data management: ensuring educational data collected by an application gets to where it needs to go in real time; 2) data privacy: guaranteeing that organizational security policies are maintained and enforced (including restricting access to individual elements in student discipline and health records); and 3) data standards: mandating the format of data both when stored in a database and when being transmitted over the wire between applications.


X-G Longitudinal Analyses Using Linked Education and Workforce Data

Carol Jenner, Washington Office of Financial Management

Workforce information is multifaceted and includes individual-level employment and unemployment data as well as characteristics of community or regional-level labor markets. This session will describe the ways in which workforce data can be incorporated into an educationfocused longitudinal data system. This presentation will also address the types of workforce information available, what questions can be addressed by incorporating workforce data into the longitudinal data system, sources of workforce data, how to acquire workforce data, and tips for preparing workforce data for incorporation in a P–20W data system. A variety of examples using workforce data in conjunction with K–12 and postsecondary data will be presented.

Download PowerPoint Presentation:

Longitudinal Analyses Using Linked Education and Workforce Data Microsoft PPT File (927 KB)


X-H Closing the Gap—Effective Use of Educational Data to Strengthen Classroom Instruction

Keith Krueger, Consortium for School Networking
Shawnte Holland, Gartner, Inc.

Similar to longitudinal data systems, student information systems (SIS) and learning management systems (LMS) have the capacity to store large amounts of student data, but state and district educators seeking to utilize these systems are confronted with a bewildering array of products and features for next-generation management systems. Through the Closing the Gap—Turning Data Into Action project, participants will gain an understanding of the current state of SIS/LMS solutions and how they are being used by K–12 educators to strengthen classroom practice. Session topics include SIS/LMS vendor product report, selection and implementation templates, case studies, and practical professional development materials.


X-I Title I Allocation Inputs

Jasen Taciak and Ian Millett, U.S. Census Bureau
William Sonnenberg, National Center for Education Statistics

The annual production and use of school-age poverty estimates for the Title I Allocation process is a multistep project undertaken by the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Center for Education Statistics. This presentation will describe that process in some detail, including the biennial update to school district boundaries that represents the functional start of the process and the modelbased procedures used to create the estimates from multiple data sources.


X-J Agile Development Using Scrum

Daniel Retzlaff, Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction

This presentation will demonstrate how the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction uses Scrum for applications development for its data collection and data management systems. The presenter will provide an interactive tutorial of what Agile/Scrum is; how Wisconsin implemented it; what benefits it has to offer for a development team or business and data analysts; and how it helps Wisconsin’s local education agencies (LEAs).

Download PowerPoint Presentation:

Agile Development Using Scrum Microsoft PPT File (1.16 MB)

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