How States Are Supporting Local Data-Driven Decisionmaking

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The broad implementation of standards-based accountability presents new opportunities and incentives for data use in education. The increase in available data for districts and schools has intensified interest in systematically collecting and analyzing an array of data at all levels of the education system, with the goal of improving student and school performance.

This report, What four states are doing to support local data-driven decisionmaking, describes how state education agencies in Arkansas, Florida, Texas, and Virginia are supporting local data-driven decisionmaking through their policies, practices, and programs for creating data systems, improving data access and use, and building district and school capacity to use data.

Data collection and analysis for this study were guided by an analytical framework developed by Data Quality Campaign, a national initiative to improve data collection, availability, and use.

In addition to state policies, the study also identified five state programs supporting district and school use of data (one in Florida, two in Texas, and two in Virginia).