Concurrent Session XII Presentations

Friday, February 25, 2011
9:45 - 10:45


XII–A: The Powerful Combination of a Single, District, and Statewide Student Information System (SIS) at Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) in Kentucky

Craig Garrison, Jefferson County Public Schools (Kentucky)
Philip Carollo, Infinite Campus

    With a single, district (and statewide) student information system, Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) in Louisville, Kentucky, has reduced hardware and software support time, relied on clean data, and focused on efficient interoperability with other systems. During this session, we will show you how JCPS has taken advantage of the Kentucky statewide implementation of Infinite Campus to improve data quality and unify district data management. Understand the efficiencies gained and see what our plans are to integrate Infinite Campus with third-party systems.

XII–B: SIF 101: What is "SIF" Really?

Jim Campbell, SIF Association

    With the ever increasing need for more timely and accurate data, many are looking at Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) implementation as a possible solution. This session will provide a "101" on the key terms, concepts, benefits, and challenges associated with SIF implementation. The session will provide a necessary foundation for informed evaluation, effective dialogue with vendors, and a common base for state and local education agency conversations, as well as a venue to have your questions answered.

XII–C: Efficiently Collecting, Monitoring, and Processing South Dakota and Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) Data for Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP)

Judy Merriman, South Dakota Department of Education
Denise Salyers, Bureau of Indian Education
Gary Behm, Infinite Campus

    With budget and staffing challenges nationwide, come learn how the South Dakota Department of Education (DOE) and the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) are leveraging their investment in a statewide student information system to collect, monitor, and process adequate yearly progress (AYP) data, all within one system. In this session, learn about the resources available to South Dakota and the BIE to monitor the accuracy of the data in their real-time data system, along with their current efforts in working closely with their vendor in building a new accountability module within the product to take further advantage of their statewide investment.

XII–D: Statewide Tools for Teaching Excellence: Linking Data to Action

Jenifer Jacobs, Texas Education Agency
Ellen Desrosiers, Lubbock Independent School District (Texas)
Kathleen Barfield, Edvance Research, Inc.
Virginia Ballato, Michael and Susan Dell Foundation

    Five Texas districts received grants from Texas Education Agency (TEA) to implement an early warning indicator system to improve high school retention and college readiness. They used PM Village, a set of web-based tools and data formats developed through funding from the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation (MSDF). Presenters will discuss the challenges and successes of using student data to identify needs, implement targeted interventions, and evaluate effectiveness. Software tools will be demonstrated; and local education agency staff will participate in the presentation, along with representatives from Edvance Research, TEA, and MSDF.

XII–E: Teacher and Administrator Use of Data to Inform Instruction—A Statewide Solution

Michael Schwartz and Ginny Clifford, New Hampshire Department of Education

    For the past three years, teachers and administrators in every school in New Hampshire have had access to a statewide student-level data system that provides access to multiple formative and summative assessments—student assessments used to understand student strengths, weaknesses, and progress. The state has relationships with national assessment providers (e.g., DIBELS, SAT, NWEA, AimsWeb) to automatically import school-administered assessments into the state system. Additionally, schools can create their own local assessment, access a repository of assessment questions, and import student results from other local or nationally administered assessments. Teachers can also track interventions (RTI) to monitor student progress and look for improvement on benchmark assessments based upon specific interventions. Principals can analyze school results; special education and curriculum coordinators can consider subgroups of students; and teachers can monitor their classes. Learn more about the New Hampshire statewide solution, including a three-and-a-half day training program that has been developed to create trainers in New Hampshire schools who can then help build expertise within their school(s) to use data to inform instruction.

XII–F: ELL, NCLB, and AMA Objectives: The WIDA Consortium's Approach to Interpreting Federal Policy and Providing Guidance

Kristopher Stewart, Rahul Joshi, and H. Gary Cook; University of Wisconsin-Madison

    The federal law, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), has established that English language learners (ELLs) are an important subgroup that states must consider when formulating policies that demonstrate student achievement. Yet state Annual Measurement Achievement Objectives (AMAO) policies vary and often do not take into account the particular language acquisition patterns of ELLs. Consequently, AMAO criteria and targets may be challenging or lenient and misinterpret the intent of the law. This session presents an overview of how the WIDA Consortium offers suggestions for AMAO policies that better capture the intent of NCLB and set realistic ELL growth expectations that assist ELLs in their acquisition of English.

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XII–G: Standardizing the EDFacts Datasets for Policy Analysis

Matthew Case and Jennifer Pierson, U.S. Department of Education

    After several years of successful data collection through the Education Data Exchange Network, the U.S. Department of Education's EDFacts Data Warehouse holds over a terabyte of aggregated data on K-12 education. Transforming that data into information inputs for use in policy, program management, and decisionmaking processes across the Department is an important information management objective for EDFacts. We will discuss recent efforts to prototype standardized analysis datasets of EDFacts data at the local education agency and school levels for the most commonly requested EDFacts data.

XII–H: Implementation and Use of Data Systems in "The Data-Informed District"

Jeff Wayman, Daniel Spikes, Vincent Cho, and Jo Beth Jimerson
The University of Texas at Austin, Department of Educational Administration

    Data systems are an integral part of data use throughout a school district. While the technology for examining student data is excellent, the technology itself is not enough; there are a number of school- and district-level issues that often make the practical use of these systems difficult. As part of a project to study The Data-Informed District, we are working with three districts on their data system implementation. In this session, we will describe our findings, our recommendations, and the real-world problems faced by these districts as they make use of their data systems.

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