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Congressional Briefing Highlights States and school districts put in place the systems necessary to comply with data collection requirements of NCLB and use data to improve student achievement For Immediate Release
For more information contact:
Irene Spero, Vice President
Press Release Washington, D.C. (Sept. 8, 2003) – Data-driven decision making as a tool to help schools improve student achievement was the focus of Congressional briefing held on July 16th in Washington, DC. The briefing was co-sponsored by the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), the preeminent national voice on the use of the Internet and information technologies to improve K-12 learning, Rep. John Boehner (Chairman, Education & the Workforce Committee) and Rep. George Miller (Ranking Member). Attending the briefing were more than 80 legislative leaders and staff members, executives from other education associations, and the media. Under the No Child Left Behind Act, "data is going to become increasingly important," said Education & the Workforce Committee Chairman John Boehner (R-OH). By not providing students with the best equipment and teachers, he added, "we're throwing American kids overboard. Enough is enough." "The guiding principle on our work on NCLB was our desire to close the achievement gap between blacks and whites and Hispanics and between rich and poor. To do that, we need to integrate information systems, computer-based instruction, and student outcome data. Nothing in the field of education has more promise than the work that is being done in both the private and public sector to marry state of the art technology and effective educational instruction," Education & the Workforce Committee Ranking Member George Miller (D-CA) added. John Bailey, Director of Educational Technology for the Department of Education, speaking on behalf of Secretary of Education Rod Paige, noted one of the core policy themes for the Act is "decentralized decision-making to the state and local level.” Taking a more hands-on approach to collecting and analyzing data will make it easier to reach the statute's goal of having 100 percent proficiency for all students in 12 years, according to Paige. Data used to make decisions are a powerful tool, providing educators with a deeper vision to know more about students and learning, and to do better in achieving educational goals, said Keith Krueger, CoSN’s CEO. “Across the United States, school districts have adopted continuous improvement as a management style and created data-driven decision making systems to support it. Thanks to the Congressional briefing, policymakers and educators are headed in the same direction as data-driven decisions starts to take hold in U.S. schools.” In addition to remarks from Reps. Boehner and Miller and Bailey, the briefing featured a panel discussion with school district and state education administrators that focused on best data practices and their relationship to NCLB success. Panel discussion participants included: John Q. Porter, Associate Superintendent, Chief Information Officer, Montgomery County (MD) Public Schools; Tracy Jones, Data Systems Supervisor, Poway Unified School District (CA); and Katie Lovett, Chief Information Officer, Fulton County Public Schools (GA). The briefing concluded with a technology exhibit containing useful tools to understand the initiative. CoSN launched the Data-driven Decision Making initiative in February 2003 as a response to the challenges teachers and administrators at the school, district and state level face in understanding how to use data appropriately as a tool to accelerate student learning. Irene Spero, project director for CoSN’s Data-Driven Decision Making: Vision to Know and Do initiative, described the July 16th briefing as just one of many CoSN efforts to help educators learn more about data systems and how to deploy them in their schools and districts. “CoSN has published a paper on the topic, will host additional policy seminars in the future, and is preparing professional development courses and other materials, all designed to help school leaders and policy makers understand and deploy successfully implement data-driven decision making programs,” Spero explained. Data-driven Decision Making is made possible through the generous support of Educational Testing Service (www.ets.org), IBM (www.ibm.com; NYSE: IBM), and SAS (www.sas.com and www.sasinschool.com). Further information about the Data-driven Decision Making initiative is available at the project’s website, www.3D2Know.org. About the Data-driven Decision Making Initiative CoSN intends to make the Data-driven Decision Making initiative a highly respected source of up-to-date, unbiased information for educators on collecting, understanding and using data effectively; an easy to use mechanism for educating school leaders about data-driven decision making and its applications in elementary and secondary education; and a nationally recognized framework for sharing knowledge among educators and transferring knowledge between the educational and vendor communities. Future Data-driven Decision Making initiative deliverables include:
About the Consortium for School Networking Founded in 1992, CoSN is the preeminent national voice on the use of the Internet and information technologies to improve K-12 learning. It played a leading role in creation of the E-rate and other key national education technology initiatives over the past decade. It is a “CIO-type” organization for education technology leaders from the school district, state and national level. In addition to the Data-driven Decision Making initiative, other current CoSN leadership initiatives include Safeguarding the Wired Schoolhouse, www.safewiredschools.org, Taking Total Cost of Ownership to the Classroom, www.classroomtco.org, and the development of the Council of School District Chief Technology Officers (CTO). Visit www.cosn.org or call 202/861-2676 to find out more about CoSN’s programs and activities that support leadership development to ensure that information technology has a direct and positive impact on student learning in elementary and secondary schools. About ETS With estimated consolidated revenues of $700 million for FY 2002, Educational Testing Service (ETS) is the world’s largest private educational testing and measurement organization and a leader in education research. The company is dedicated to serving the needs of individuals, educational institutions, and government bodies in nearly 200 countries. ETS develops and administers more than 12 million tests worldwide. For more information, access the ETS Web site at www.ets.org. ETS also has two subsidiaries: CapStar, a leading provider of certification and licensing examinations for professionals, businesses, and government agencies; and ETS International BV (Europe) www.ets.org/etseurope/index.html, Headquartered in Utrecht, the Netherlands, ETS’s newest subsidiary now makes the world-class products, services, and resources of ETS more readily accessible to the European education and training community. About IBM IBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. Drawing on resources from across IBM and key Business Partners, IBM offers a wide range of services, solutions and technologies that enable customers, large and small, to take full advantage of the new era of e-business. For more information about IBM, visit www.ibm.com. About SAS SAS is the market leader in providing a new generation of business intelligence software and services that create true enterprise intelligence. SAS solutions are used at more than 40,000 sites – including 90 percent of the Fortune 500 -- to develop more profitable relationships with customers and suppliers; to enable better, more accurate and informed decisions; and to drive organizations forward. SAS is the only vendor that completely integrates leading data warehousing, analytics and traditional BI applications to create intelligence from massive amounts of data. For more than 25 years, SAS has been giving customers around the world The Power to Know®. For more information, visit www.sas.com and www.sasinschool.com. Editor's Note: To receive a copy of the “Vision to Know and Do: The Power of Data as a Tool in Educational Decision Making” paper, contact Charlene Blohm at charlene@cblohm.com, 210/656-2324 (office) or 210/602-1444 (mobile). 
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