Technology, as we know it, is currently refining itself to transform the way schools deliver instruction, manage administrative capabilities, store and utilize data in an effective way to improve student achievement. With the onset of NCLB, high-stakes testing, evaluation and accountability in Pennsylvania's schools, data driven decision making has become a crucial aspect of any type of evaluation done by any entity.



What is D3M Technology?

Data Driven Decision Making Technology Software (D3M) can be utilized to achieve those accountability aspects that schools and education establishments are seeking to achieve and overall improve student achievement. Development of the tool has been progressing for the past several years and is globally addressed by many venues of industry. It is significant to note that various and versatile applications of software can be chosen by the client to achieve the desired goals and objectives of the client utilizing the technology based on their own needs and wants. The D3M is designed to assist the instructor manage student progress, learning materials and resources, and the program curriculum. Many of the applications contain database warehousing, as well as, database mining based upon your platform's intent. Many applications provide secure internet access to your data, on-site management, and a fact-based, integrated information accountability system to provide the necessary actionable business intelligence data for decision making. There is an incredible amount of computerized data warehousing & mining systems available world-wide for a wide range of clients tailored to suit their educational needs. Such systems for data driven decision making routinely address the objectives of:

· Performance Based Data Management
· Adequate Yearly Progress as required by NCLB
· Cycle Time of Curriculum Cycles (Materials, Resources, and Textbooks)
· Decision Support Systems
· Requirements Specification
· Student Confidentiality
· Student ID Numbers
· Data Modeling
· Defining Requirements
· Simplified Collection
· Streamlined Reporting
· Technology Auditing
· Data Quality and Best Practices
· School District to State Reporting

Using data to make good decisions is not new. How we, as school and education agencies, achieve that goal, is new and constantly modifying due to emerging and refining technology. The growing number of ways school leaders can collect the data more easily and more effectively is a growing trend. School and education leaders need to select appropriate and relevant information and numbers for inclusion. There is no "one size fits all" for all school districts within any given Commonwealth when it comes to how D3M is utilized. There is great diversity in states and schools both in structures and approaches to tasks.

The 50 states have different constituents, circumstances, and operating budgets that allow them to operate with different degrees of centralization and local control. Each state and school system has a different starting point and aspire to different goals and objectives throughout the process, each reaching distinct results. Some schools and states are utilizing D3M technology specifically for addressing the mandates under the No Child Left Behind Act, while others have chosen to allow the system to provide a database mechanism to allow districts to judge and evaluate performance of school programs while identifying goals and objectives.

D3M technology extends beyond schools providing wider range of influence as ultimately parents and children will benefit from the ability to make more informed choices about education based on relevant data. Increased information provides more chances for engaging the public and community in relevant education issues impacting their local school districts as districts seek improvement. By providing more relevant information to parents and community members about their schools, the data can offer parents guidance on what matters for their own child's education and how they can advocate for educational excellence.

Parents may use that data to better understand their child's educational development or to choose a school to meet their needs. The compare and contrast feature available in some states, helps parents make sense of test scores, teacher experience, student to teacher ratios and other measures by putting them into context with similar schools. Many schools also have enhanced profiles with details about the school's philosophies and special programs.

In 1997, Oregon State launched the Database Initiative to coordinate school district financial reporting into a consistent, electronic format.

What began as an accounting practice, quickly evolved into an overall technology initiative answering fundamental questions, such as:

· What is a quality education?
· What does it cost?
· What do stakeholders expect from their public schools?
· Are we accomplishing what we had hoped to accomplish?
· How is our district doing?
· What's working? What's not working?
· Are we cost-effective?

Through a phased approach, the state tackled their financial information first, and gradually integrated education programming and student data into their database warehousing. In 2002, all 200 school districts in the state converted over to the technology program providing data and analysis on best educational practices, student demographics and performance, compare and contrast profiles, and accessible resource sites.

Since that time, Oregon has also developed the Comprehensive School Review Process to help districts and schools with continuing education improvement efforts by utilizing well-defined quality and performance indicators. A review team from the state then visits the school and later assists schools with modifications and training based on their analysis to help schools meet the needs of their respective district.

Data driven decision making promises to improve the quality of education through the process of gathering data, analysis, action, and reassessment. The stakes are high and teachers already feel tremendous pressure in meeting standards, integrating technology into their classroom curriculum and lesson plans, and responding to the individual needs of the students without the added burden of imputing data and information onto a computer system, as well as, retrieval. Successful D3M programs take this factor into account by providing teachers with timely feedback and support services.

Some programs allow a teacher to look up a math or reading academic state standard when they want information to support their instruction, which results into content information, a sample lesson plan, skill checks, and sample test items similar to the state wide assessment.

I believe Pennsylvania is in the process of doing just that through their Department of Education website, in regards to teacher lesson plans. Some school districts and states hire a full-time data analyst to extract data into summaries and reports to be utilized within their district. Rather than wade through a sea of numbers and data, principals and superintendents can pick up the phone inquiring reports with broad information and output allowing them to meet their decision needs. Furthermore, there are many school districts throughout the state, as well as, country that glean immense amounts of testing data and information, but, do not know how to utilize it and make the proper applications to be utilized within one's respective district.

The same can be said of some education personnel who's forte is to teach, educate, administer, but, do not know how to read, analyze, or make contrasts or correlations as related to the data in which they receive. Common sense tells us the numbers are meaningless and therefore useless when individuals have to decipher through large amounts of data and information and ultimately unable to make sense of it all and make useful and beneficial applications. As states develop systems to meet federal regulations and support their own initiatives, districts grapple with ways to simplify collection and streamline reporting.

A future direction for states and schools utilizing any type of technology system is to go beyond numbers and metrics to meaningful text. Meaningful text means not only the capability to search narrative, but also to search for the meaning of the narrative. This will move the direction of these current technology programs into an arena of having a knowledgebase in contrast to current database warehousing. As many educators recognize in the education arena only, there is sometimes a method to the madness being the difference is that a knowledgebase offers the ability to search and locate ideas, conclusions, trends, and commonalities. This superstructure describes the data and even the research articles, lesson plans, readings, learning objectives, etc. by characteristics that are meaningful and useful to the information seekers.

From reviewing various researches into this subject matter, especially beyond arenas than education, it is clear that many of the D3M programs focus on a narrow set of decision questions from a well-defined set of data indicators. Whereas, education draws upon a very broad set of data elements, but also serves a wide ranging set of audiences depending where you sit as a parent, principal, superintendent, curriculum specialist, student, legislator, policymaker, and so on.

Each audience is gleaning various key elements important to them in answering the questions they are asking. Each of these decisions requires a different set of data elements from a database, a different analysis of data, and possibly a different reporting option. Discussion is vital among decision-makers about the design of the system that tries to meet the needs of everyone in broader terms in lieu of separate and specific purposes.

Overall, it’s significant to say that each and every audience needs to be addressed in some way for reporting and accountability purposes. Decision-making within the public education arena has not been traditionally "data based"; however, this author believes that is all changing, slowly over time. We now have generations of young people who access their information entirely by technology in what they learn and share. We now live in a new day and age where the past mantra of "Show me the money" is now, "Show me the data", "Show me the evidence", "Show me the numbers".

Modern and ever-changing technology requires money, priority, maintenance, and upgrades...none of which is easy to budget or manage.

While at one time, most vendors of commercial products did not understand schools and education, I believe that aspect is changing also.

It is clearer what schools want and what schools services are needed in the technology arena. While some grants are available toward technology, it would be most advantageous for all school districts to have access by instituting technology network or consortium across Pennsylvania that leverages federal dollars to provide an adequate level of applications and equity funding for all public school districts, as well as, all intermediate units for technological services such as D3M...dedicated funding of some type, similar to what the Mid-west consortium does through networking and sharing resources and eliminating redundant programs and services.

Some technology grant programs include:
· Hands On Learning Grants
· Core Teaching Skills for an Information Age (Part of the Acts in PA Grants)
· Enhancing education Through Technology Grants (EETT)
· Pennsylvania Accountability Block Grant

Technology is a big money item in any school budget. With the threat of referendum, schools may be fighting to retain their most current technology programs with no motivation to implement or create new ones....it may be all they can do to sustain the ones they currently have without some type of available funding. Yet, most small and rural schools throughout Pennsylvania still do not have internet access as critically examined through the process of HB 30, which was never moved by the Senate in November of 2003, after House passage.

Without such services, these schools and communities can not fully experience the benefits of such technology services as D3M and it only accentuates the "digital divide" amongst these areas of the Commonwealth and literally leaves these schools and students behind in an era when we are federally pushed to aspire to the opposite through accountability. Fair deployment to all areas of the state was at the heart of HB 30. The final 10-15% of the rural areas, or rural sprawl, as so often referred, provided the most challenge because the area was so spread out, the population was smaller, and therefore the costs are higher and to keep services adequate in prices that districts could afford, most companies would generally make less money. Most of the grants seem to cover start up costs and then ultimately the local taxpayer funds the program similar to those of a mandate in order to sustain what's been implemented. In essence, funding and money will be a big issue with this as any other technology program.

The flip side of this issue is that the cost of ownership may lower over time by the following:

· Decreased time and cost associated with implementation.
· Reduced dependency on technical staff for data access and analysis.
· Leverage legacy systems by consolidating servers to one central repository.
· Reduce maintenance and support costs by eliminating redundant systems and programs.
· Eliminate ineffective school programming as a result of data collected and analyzed.
· Increase efficiency and effectiveness of student programming and curriculum.
· Increased effectiveness and efficiency of taxdollars in providing a cost effective and quality academic program.

However, if money remains to be the ultimate deciding factor in determining a school district's technology direction, they may want to consider implementing the Pennsylvania Value-Added System which would be effective in providing data toward AYP as per NCLB, be cost effective for most school budgets, and provide an accurate picture of student achievement. School districts could also look into "Smart Contract" which allows schools to have direct access to vendors as successfully and demonstrated by IU4 (the IU which my district belongs to) which pools the purchasing power and allows districts to save hundreds of dollars while bidding on state of the art technology.

A common concern of educators and parents when considering wide access to data is the potential for misuse of the data. As mentioned previously in regards to audiences seeking information to satisfy their appetites, districts should contemplate offering reselected data to certain audiences based upon their "Need to know" but also upon the appropriateness of their utilizing the data for their intended purpose.

Just as student privacy and safeguards need to be in place when securing and releasing data for analysis and application, the same is true for longitudinal and horizontal data collected over a period of years by one district. A characteristic of a well-designed system would allow comparisons of test scores within a year, but, not across a period of many, years. Security, confidentiality, and functionality are all challenging aspects which need to be addressed within the framework of such a system.

As advances in technology race ahead, we must ensure that the nation's students become technological literate. Not to meet this challenge will mean that American students will only fall further and further behind. With reading, writing, and arithmetic, technology has become the nation's "new basic". Our children's future, the future economic health of the nation, and the competence of America's future workforce depend on our meeting this challenge. (U.S. Dept. of Education, 1996).*

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Respectfully Submitted,
Kimberly D. Geyer
Mars School Director
Mars Research & Retrieval Services

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