School districts have the challenging task of collecting relevant data about their district, students, and teachers, and have to make well-informed decisions based on that data. But well-informed decisions are only as strong as the underlying data. A district data warehouse can be invaluable for school districts to connect data, solve problems, and enable data-based decision-making. But exactly how can your school district benefit from implementing its own district data warehouse?
Easily Integrate and Access Data
In a digital, data-driven world there are likely many times when your district has been called on to provide specific data. But it’s not always just that you need to deliver the data, but that educators need to come up with it within a deadline. When you already have an education data warehouse in place, it comes down to simply knowing what data you need and pulling it from your warehouse.
In 2012, Fort Wayne Community Schools (FWCS) applied for a TIF Grant, a program offered by the US Department of Education providing funding for developing performance-based compensation systems in high-needs schools. Additionally, that same year FWCS was part of a pilot program with the Indiana Department of Education to implement a new performance-based compensation system. Both of these programs required significant uses of data such as teacher evaluation scores that incorporated student growth, student performance, and observation. Since Fort Wayne Community Schools has had their own distinct data warehouse (eScholar CDW) in place since 1999, they had the ability to provide clear and comprehensive data to participate in these programs.
Recognize Patterns in Student Performance
While on the surface we tend to rely on teachers to recognize patterns in student performance due to their ability to see those patterns first hand, it’s pretty widely accepted that personal accounts aren’t always accurate and certainly aren’t going to be as comprehensive as actual data. Creating longitudinal student profiles of K-12 students ensures that you can answer questions like “Which students are chronically absent or at risk of chronic absenteeism?” and “Which students are at the cusp of showing mastery based on formative assessments?”
Fort Wayne Community School was able to establish the Go Green solution, which is a data-driven system that identifies if students are on track to graduate based on a set of district-defined data indicators. With longitudinal student profiles, it’s much easier to recognize patterns in student performance to better understand and serve the student population. This means better insights to ensure they’re assigned to the right courses and have the resources they need to succeed.
In the end, an education data warehouse allows for the ability to collect, connect, and analyze data so that your district educators can make data-driven decisions. With the right data available, the ability to solve problems, improve programs, and evaluate students and teachers becomes much more simplified and evidence-based. Alternatively, without one, most districts lack an efficient way to bring data together to uncover valuable insights.
Learn more about our district data warehouse, eScholar CDW, here.
