The Secretary’s speech will focus on the Department’s commitment to using robust data systems to inform education reform.  This will include the role of data and evidence in evaluating Race to the Top and Investing in Innovation Fund proposals—before, during, and after the money is spent. This also will include a call for more states to build comprehensive longitudinal systems that track students from pre-K through college and the workforce.

Helping States and Districts Swim in an Ocean of New Data
John Q. Easton, Director, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education

Dr. Easton’s talk will focus on how IES can support states and districts as they strive to productively use their increasingly robust and rich longitudinal data systems.  The Institute has awarded $500 million in grants in the past two years to support State Longitudinal Data Systems. But IES also can play a big role in developing partnerships with district and state data experts that support efforts to provide timely descriptive and analytic feedback to their schools. Educators in these systems have an abundance of questions that can be answered with descriptive data, and will have even more with the expansion of these longitudinal data systems.