Overcome uncertainty and concerns as you and your colleagues learn how to analyze and use data to get better at teaching students.

Offers a practical guide for improving schools dramatically that will enable all students from all backgrounds to achieve at high levels. Includes assessment forms, an index, and a DVD.

Data Wise: A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Assessment Results to Improve Teaching and Learning presents a clear and carefully tested blueprint for school leaders. It shows how examining test scores and other classroom data can become a catalyst for important schoolwide conversations that will enhance schools’ abilities to capture teachers’ knowledge, foster collaboration, identify obstacles to change, and enhance school culture and climate. This revised and expanded edition captures the learning that has emerged in integrating the Data Wise process into school practice and brings the book up-to-date with recent developments in education and technology including: The shift to the Common Core State Standards. New material on the “ACE Habits of Mind”: practices that prioritize Action, Collaboration, and Evidence as part of transforming school culture. A new chapter on “How We Improve,” based on experiences implementing Data Wise and to address two common questions: “Where do I start?” and “How long will it take?” Other revisions take into account changes in the roles of school data teams and instructional leadership teams in guiding the inquiry process. The authors have also updated exhibits, examples, and terminology throughout and have added new protocols and resources.

"Gathering data and using it to inform instruction is a requirement for many schools, yet educators are not necessarily formally trained in how to do it. This book helps bridge the gap between classroom practice and the principles of educational psychology. Teachers will find cutting-edge advances in research and theory on human learning and teaching in an easily understood and transferable format. The text's integrated model shows teachers, school leaders, and district administrators how to establish a data culture and transform quantitative and qualitative data into actionable knowledge based on: assessment; statistics; instructional and differentiated psychology; classroom management."--Publisher's description.

What does it look like when a school uses data wisely? Data Wise in Action, a new companion and sequel to our bestselling Data Wise, tells the stories of eight very different schools following the Data Wise process of using assessment results to improve teaching and learning. Data Wise in Action highlights the leadership challenges schools face in each phase of the eight-step Data Wise cycle and illustrates how staff members use creativity and collaboration to overcome those challenges. Data Wise in Action builds on the work of leading faculty and graduate students at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, who joined with exemplary practitioners in 2005 to produce Data Wise: A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Assessment Results to Improve Teaching and Learning. Since its publication, Data Wise has been read by thousands of school leaders, many of whom have shared the book with colleagues and staff. The success of the original book has generated a new demand among school leaders: to hear real stories from schools that are implementing the Data Wise process. Data Wise in Action answers that need. It offers both inspiration and practical guidance for school leaders.

In How to Make Decisions with Different Kinds of Student Assessment Data, best-selling author Susan M. Brookhart helps teachers and administrators understand the critical elements and nuances of assessment data and how that information can best be used to inform improvement efforts in the school or district. Readers will learn— * What different kinds of data can—and cannot—tell us about student learning; * What different analyses reveal about changes in student achievement; * How to interpret, use, and share relevant data; and * How to create a model to go from problem to solution in a data-based decision-making process. With easy-to-understand explanations, supplemented by examples and scenarios from actual schools, this book offers a path to better understanding, more accurate interpretation of assessment results, and—most important—more effective use of data to improve teaching and learning.

Leading for Instructional Improvement Educational experts agree that quality teaching is the single most important factor in improving educational outcomes for all students. Teaching is a highly sophisticated and complex endeavor requiring deep expertise on the part of teachers and school leaders. This book shows how teacher, school, and district leaders can cultivate the expertise of teachers to deliver high quality instruction for all students. Leading for Instructional Improvement captures the nationally acclaimed work conducted by the Center for Educational Leadership at the University of Washington in its effort to improve the quality of teaching and leadership in schools across the country. The book provides extensive practical guidance grounded in theory and research, along with powerful stories and examples from classrooms, schools, and districts. Many of the tools, protocols, and frameworks contained in this book can be accessed electronically by visiting the Center for Educational Leadership website at www.k-12leadership.org. Praise for Leading for Instructional Improvement "This book offers insights that are invaluable to educators who seek to enhance teacher effectiveness now. The ideas presented are practical and applicable to schools in a variety of settings." PEDRO A. NOGUERA, Ph.D., Peter L. Agnew Professor of Education, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Development and executive director, Metropolitan Center for Urban Education "A deep and thoughtful look at how the issue of expertise is cultivated. Seizing upon their Center's research-based instructional framework, the authors provide important insights and tools." DR. BEVERLY HALL, superintendent, Atlanta Public Schools "In this age of intense focus on how we evaluate teachers, we have to remember that any evaluation is only as good as the evaluator. This extremely useful book provides an excellent roadmap for how principals can become more effective in the most important aspect of their work, instructional leadership." JERRY D. WEAST, Ed.D., superintendent of schools, Montgomery County Public Schools, Maryland "Fink and Markholt offer practitioners a guide to effective teaching. Leading for Instructional Improvement asks us to heed the lessons within and support the kind of teacher education that will improve student achievement for today's schools and those of tomorrow." BARNETT BERRY, president, Center for Teaching Quality

Praise for the First Edition: "Creighton′s descriptions of the applicability and helpfulness of statistics for educators is especially strong. His use of plain language and school-based examples is crucial." -Scott McLeod, Assistant Professor University of Cincinnati Improve instructional leadership practice with proven, easy-to-understand strategies for data-based decision making! Since the first edition of Schools and Data, the No Child Left Behind Act has swept the country, and data-based decision making is no longer an option for educators. Today′s educational climate makes it imperative for all schools to collect data and use statistical analysis to help create clear goals and recognize strategies for improvement. Schools and Data, Second Edition, focuses on the relevance of statistics in the lives of principals and teachers. Real-life examples and step-by-step procedures for collecting and organizing data provide every school leader with the means to facilitate more appropriate and effective decision making. With a highly practical method for statistical analysis, this comprehensive yet reader-friendly new edition places special emphasis on: Connecting statistics and educators′ daily work Integrating applied technology, including Excel and SPSS software Strengthening educators′ data interpretation skills Building strong skills in problem analysis, program evaluation, data-driven decision making, and report preparation Increasing the focus on correlation and regression Packed with easy-to-follow instructions, illustrations, and real-world examples that educators can readily understand, this is an essential resource for school leaders who want to create meaningful, data-driven decisions! *Note: The author created web site that provides information and activities paralleling the individual chapters of the second education of Schools and Data text is NO LONGER AVAILABLE.

Our fifth book in the International Research on School Leadership series focuses on the use of data in schools and districts as useful information for leadership and decision making. Schools are awash in data and information, from test scores, to grades, to discipline reports, and attendance as just a short list of student information sources, while additional streams of data feed into schools and districts from teachers and parents as well as local, regional and national policy levels. To deal with the data, schools have implemented a variety of data practices, from data rooms, to data days, data walks, and data protocols. However, despite the flood of data, successful school leaders are leveraging an analysis of their school’s data as a means to bring about continuous improvement in an effort to improve instruction for all students. Nevertheless, some drown, some swim, while others find success. Our goal in this book volume is to bring together a set of chapters by authors who examine successful data use as it relates to leadership and school improvement. In particular, the chapters in this volume consider important issues in this domain, including: • How educational leaders use data to inform their practice. • What types of data and data analysis are most useful to successful school leaders. • To what extent are data driven and data informed practices helping school leaders positively change instructional practice? • In what ways does good data collection and analysis feed into successful continuous improvement and holistic systems thinking? • How have school leadership practices changed as more data and data analysis techniques have become available? • What are the major obstacles facing school leaders when using data for decision making and how do they overcome them?

The bestselling guide for school leaders—updated in a new edition Data-driven instruction is the philosophy that schools should focus on two simple questions: how do you know if are students learning? And when they are not, what do you do about it? Driven by Data 2.0 is a practical guide that answers these questions to empower schools to achieve significant gains in student achievement. Rooted in a proven framework that has been implemented in thousands of schools, the book presents what makes schools successful along with tools to put the framework into place to make data work for your schools: Assess—set the roadmap for learning Analyze—identify why students struggle Act—teach more effectively what students need Build the culture—train and develop your staff so that data-driven instruction can thrive If you’re a K – 12 leader, coach, or teacher looking to implement data-driven instruction in your school district, Driven by Data 2.0 has the tools to train your staff: PD materials, videos of exemplar practice and all the resources you need to achieve remarkable results.