Thank you for visiting our website, www.3d2know.org and requesting information about CoSN’s Data-driven Decision Making Initiative: Vision to Know and Do. This newsletter is the second in a series of periodic updates that you will be receiving. I hope that this information is of interest and welcome your comments and suggestions. Please contact Irene Spero, Vice President, CoSN, at irene@cosn.org. Thanks.

Coming Soon: Vision to Know and Do: Part II

Vision to Know and Do: How School Districts Use Data to Improve Performance will be released shortly. The report goes beyond the vision identified in Part I to highlight districts that are acting on their data, testing the results and seeing improvement in student learning.

Published in 2003, Vision to Know and Do: the Power of Data as a Tool in Educational Decision Making defined a vision for continuous improvement, identified leadership districts creating a climate for change, and reviewed the implementation of systems and processes to enable data-driven decision making (DDDM).

Written for school district leaders and K-12 educators, this new report draws from interviews with more than 30 experts in the field, including teachers, principals, district administrators, entrepreneurs, consultants, researchers and other professionals. Detailed profiles of Lemon Grove School District (CA), Fulton County Schools (GA), and Cleveland Municipal School District (OH) demonstrate the ways different school districts use data throughout their organizations. The paper is being written by Karen Greenwood Henke of Nimble Press.

We will contact you when the report is ready, and you can always visit www.3d2know.org for updates on the release date of the publication and information about obtaining a copy.

How Are You Using the CoSN Data-driven Decision Making Tools?

The tools and information provided by CoSN’s Data-driven Decision Making: Vision to Know and Do are being used in school districts and classrooms across the country.

Here are some recent examples:

• The 2004 CoSN Compendium article, The Great Race: Collaborating around Data to Improve Student Achievement, is assigned reading for a course on Program Evaluation at Utah State University. The course is taught by CoSN member Steve Zsiray, Associate Superintendent, Cache County School District, North Logan, UT.
  
  
• A group of thirty school districts in Minnesota is beginning its own data-driven decision making project and will be making use of the self assessment tool available at www.3d2know.org/assessment/survey.cfm, which was developed by CoSN as part of the initiative.
  
  
• At the University of Northern Iowa, Vision to Know and Do: the Power of Data as a Tool in Educational Decision Making is required reading in a course on the use of databases in education taught by Associate Professor Leigh Zeitz.
  
  

Please let us know how you are using the Data-driven Decision Making tools to inform educational practice in your school or district.

Recent Articles about Vision to Know and Do

• The June 2004 issue of eSchool News contains a separate section on Data-driven Decision Making which prominently mentions CoSN, reporting on the April Congressional briefing and including an article, The Keys to Using Data to Improve Instruction, by Bob Moore, executive director of IT services for the Blue Valley Unified School District in Overland Park, KS and chair of CoSN’s Board of Directors. The special section was distributed to K-20 decision makers and is available on the eSchool News website at www.eschoolnews.com/resources/reports/datadrivendecisionmaking/
  
  
• The September 2004 issue of WINLinx, the newsletter of the Win-Win Strategies Foundation, focuses on the use of data for accountability and continuous school improvement and features the CoSN Data-driven Decision Making Initiative, including an interview with Irene Spero, project director, commentary by Charlie Garten, Executive Director, Technology and Information Systems, Poway Unified School District, Poway, CA and an interview with Katie Lovett, Chief Information Officer, Fulton County Schools, Atlanta, GA. Charlie and Katie are both members of CoSN’s Board of Directors. The newsletter is available at www.winwinsf.org/newsletter/sept04/index.htm
  
  

Vision to Know and Do Presentations at National Meetings and Education Conferences

All presentations are posted at www.3d2know.org.

• Vision to Know and Do: A Data-driven Decision Making Partnership
  STATS-DC 2004
  NCES FORUM & Summer Data Conference
  Irene K. Spero, Vice President, Consortium for School Networking
  John Q. Porter, Associate Superintendent, Chief Information Officer, Montgomery County (MD) Public Schools
  Washington, DC
  Thursday, July 29, 2004
  
  
• Vision to Know and Do: A Data-driven Decision Making Partnership
  Florida Educational Technology Corporation
  Orlando, FL
  Thursday, January 27, 2005
  
  

How Ready Are You?

CoSN is now providing districts with a special tool to determine their readiness to use data-driven decision making for both accountability and continuous school improvement. The self assessment is available at www.3d2know.org/assessment/survey.cfm. Join the more than 700 school districts that have already taken the survey and learn where you fit in terms of collecting data, analyzing data and targeting data for intervention. We urge you to spend a few minutes taking this self assessment, after which you will receive an immediate calculation of the results. Results are strictly confidential.

Check www.3d2know.org for New Resources

We are continually updating the resources on our website, so check back frequently for new materials that can help you use data effectively. CoSN wants www.3d2know.org to be the definitive website for educators on data-driven decision making, so please remember to share your resources with us. If you have a publication, presentation, or reference relating to this initiative that you’re willing to share, please send it to Irene Spero at irene@cosn.org so that it can be posted on www.3d2know.org/other.html.

CoSN Issues Call for Best Data Practices

In order to highlight districts which are using data effectively, CoSN is compiling best practices and developing case studies of school districts that are using data-driven decision making systems to support continuous improvement and achieve their educational goals. To submit information on your district’s efforts, go to www.3d2know.org/best_practices.html.

Plan to Attend CoSN K-12 School Networking Conference

The CoSN Annual K-12 School Networking Conference, Beyond Wires & Boxes: Using Technology for Transformation, will take place on March 22 and 23, 2005 at the Renaissance Hotel in Washington, DC. The K-12 School Networking Conference attracts more than 700 district, state and national education technology leaders. There are a number of sessions planned on the subject of using data in the educational process. For more information, see www.k12schoolnetworking.org.

Coming Soon

Please watch www.3d2know.org for upcoming announcements about:

• Now You Have The Data, What Questions Can You Answer? in the upcoming December 2004 issue of Scholastic Administr@tor, which provides specific examples of the ways schools districts are using data to monitor school attendance, enrollment shifts, federal funding, cost of spam and assignment of teacher’s aides.
  
  
• How Districts Use Data to Improve Performance, part of the 2004-2005 CoSN Internet & Education Webcast series, which is scheduled for June 1, 2005.
  
  
• Professional development courses.
  
  
• New data-driven decision making tools.
  
  
• Website revisions.
  
  
• Policy briefings.
  
  

About the Data-driven Decision Making Initiative

The Goals of the Data-driven Decision Making Initiative are to:

• Serve as a highly respected source of up-to-date, unbiased information for educators on collecting, understanding and effectively using data;
  
  
• Provide an easy-to-use mechanism for educating school leaders about data-driven decision making and its applications in elementary and secondary education; and
  
  
• Supply a nationally recognized framework for sharing knowledge among educators and transferring knowledge between the educational and vendor communities.
  
  

Data-driven Decision Making: Vision to Know and Do is made possible through the generous support of Educational Testing Service (www.ets.org), IBM (www.ibm.com; NYSE: IBM), SAS (www.sas.com and www.sasinschool.com), PLATO Learning (www.plato.com), Dell (www.dell.org), Pearson Digital Learning (www.pearsondigital.com), Co-nect (www.co-nect.com), PowerSchool (www.apple.com/education/powerschool), SchoolNet (www.schoolnet.com) and Texas Instruments (education.ti.com). Scholastic Administr@tor (www.scholasticadministrator.com) is the media partner for the project.

About CoSN

The Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), a national non-profit organization, is the premier voice in education technology leadership. Our mission is to advance the K-12 education community’s capacity to effectively use technology to improve learning through advocacy, policy and l eadership development. Our members represent school districts, state and local education agencies, nonprofits, companies and individuals who share our vision. To learn how membership in CoSN can make a difference in your district, click on www.cosn.org/join or contact us at either membership@cosn.org or 866/267-8747 x115.

Other CoSN Initiatives