Postsecondary / College and Career Readiness Resources

ESE has released a new DART (District Analysis and Review Tool) that contains a range of high school, postsecondary, and career readiness data. Included in the tool are demographics, high school indicators, high school performance, program of study, postsecondary education outcomes, and career development education over a number of school years. DART helps users to find "comparable" schools and allows them to contrast their school's progress on student outcomes to similar schools and the state. To access DART–Success after High School, go to www.doe.mass.edu/apa/dart.

In addition, there are ongoing resources available from ESE on a variety of topics related to College and Career Readiness, including a February webinar on Graduation and Dropout rate data.
http://www.doe.mass.edu/news/news.aspx?id=7847

DART Updated; Elements Now in Profiles

The folks at ESE have now integrated the DART (District Analysis and Review Tool) into the School and District Profiles Web site. All of the functionality built in the DART for Districts and DART for Schools spreadsheets is available online. A tab labeled “Analysis – DART” now appears on each organization’s profile page. Comparisons can be made with respect to enrollment, curriculum/instruction/assessment, achievement gap, and finance/management.

The Excel-based versions of the DART, including the DART Detail tools (for ELLs and Staffing/Finance) have been updated as of October 2012, and can be found at
http://www.doe.mass.edu/apa/dart/.

Commissioner's Update: February 16, 2012

An update from the Commissioner is now available on the ESE Web site. Topics include the Model System for Educator Evaluation, the TELL Mass survey, DART Detail: ELLs, a Race to the Top Newsletter, EPP plans and spring 2012 assessments, and more. There sure is a lot happening in Massachusetts schools!

DART Detail: English Language Learners

The ESE is has introduced DART Detail: English Language Learners, the second of a series of dynamic Excel-based data investigation tools. This ELL-specific tool includes data such as enrollment, primary languages, countries of origin, MEPA performance, achievement gap information, MCAS performance, student indicators, staffing data, and Title III allocations. (Note: this version of the tool has been updated since the pilot release of DART Detail: ELLs in December and a User's Guide is now available.)

New AP and SAT data posted to Profiles

The School and District Profiles area has been updated to include information related to the 2009-2010 AP and SAT exams (the latest available to ESE from the College Board). The following reports are available:

• 2009-10 Advanced Placement Performance Report
• 2009-10 Advanced Placement Participation Report
• 2009-10 SAT Performance Report

Schools and Districts may choose to use the DART tool to identify "like" organizations for comparison purposes as they explore this AP and SAT data.

October 2011 DART Headlines

The DART (District Analysis and Review Tool) is an Excel-based data tool from ESE which provides snapshots of district performance, allowing users to easily track select data elements over time, and make comparisons to the state or to "comparable" districts. The data elements include a broad range of district and school interests including demographic, assessment, student support, educator, financial, and achievement gap data.

The DART was recently updated to include 2011 data, and a DART Detail tool focused on data about English Language Learners is expected to be released in November. For additional details and the latest tools, please visit the DART page on the ESE Web site.

DART Tool Enhancements

Last summer, DESE published the Excel-based "DART" (District Analysis and Review Tool), available online at http://www.doe.mass.edu/sda/dart/. The DART offers a snapshot of district performance, allowing users to easily track select data elements over time, and make comparisons to the state or to "comparable" districts.

A variety of enhancements to the DART were published last week, including the addition of 2010-2011 SIMS data, new enrollment data, curriculum indicators, and graduation information. (Details are listed on the DART page linked above.)

There is also a brand-new file called "DART Detail: Finance and Staffing," the first in a series of DART files that will provide more detail in particular areas. This tool allows you to compare five districts and their three year trends in finance and staffing.

Of course, the most useful tool for most of us this week has been ... a shovel. Happy snow!

A Resource Summary and Shout-Out to SSESPA

I wanted to post a special "thank you" to the South Shore Elementary School Principals Association for inviting me to speak at their meeting last Friday. I am glad you've found your way to the SouthEast Educational Data (SEED) blog and hope you'll find the information here helpful.

Here is a brief summary of the resources I mentioned at the SSESPA meeting - some data related, and some general - which I hope will be useful for all SEED blog visitors.

Data Warehouse Resources (some very practical blog postings)

• Running Reports in the Background
• Creating Customized Student Roster Reports
• Engaging Staff in MCAS Data Exploration Activity
• Data Warehouse Report Summary Document (updated 10/20/2010)

The Growth Model - a new way to look at student performance

School and District Profiles - access lots of school/district data without logging in to the DW!

District Analysis and Reporting Tool (DART) - allows comparison with "like" schools and districts using a variety of indicators

Toolkits and Resources on the ESE/DSAC Web page

• Conditions for School Effectiveness Self-Assessment
• Professional Learning Communities Guidance
• District Data Team Toolkit
• Learning Walk-Through Implementation Guide
• Common Planning Time Self-Assessment Toolkit

If you're new to the blog, please check out the right hand side of the main SEED blog page for Email subscription options as well as access to previous posts through the Archives or Labels links.

Data News from MassCUE

I attended one day of the fabulous MassCUE conference at Gillette Stadium on Wednesday 10/28, and wanted to share some of the things I learned. I will come back and post links to the session resources here once they are up on the MassCUE Web site.

I attended a session entitled, "Formative Assessment using Google Apps," presented by the Harwich Public Schools. They have used Google Forms to easily create online quizzes to check student understanding...with instant results tallied to a Google spreadsheet! I have used Google Forms for surveys and the like (similar to Zoomerang and Survey Monkey, but free and unlimited, with data automatically collected in a back end spreadsheet) but it was interesting to see it used to check student understanding and used immediately to inform instruction.

Jeff Comenitz from the ESE's Data Warehouse team had a plethora of information about the DART tool, the growth model, the SIF project, and the new Student Course Schedule (SCS) data collection. (Of course, if you're a follower of this blog, none of these topics are new to you!) He shared some sample teacher-level Data Warehouse reports which are being developed for next fall, once the teacher and student data are connected in the Data Warehouse.

Associate Commissioner Bob Bickerton spoke on "Using Data and New Tools for Decision Making and Continuous Improvement." He highlighted not only the various data collection initiatives (SIMS, EPIMS, SCS, SIF) but also plans for the RTTT-funded "teaching and learning system." He acknowledged the performance challenges that the Data Warehouse is currently encountering, and described how the SLDS grant funds are being used in part to re-architect the Data Warehouse to improve performance and support wider use of the tool.

I spoke with many of the student information system vendors as well as some vendors offering data management tools. I would like to better understand the capabilities of the various systems to handle local data, so that I can help districts in our region understand what options are available to them based on the tools that they may already have in place.

We did get to hear from Jonathan Kraft at lunchtime, however, rain prevented the Patriots from taking the practice field so, sadly, I don't have any Tom Brady sightings to report.

And even more updates...

Yes, it's a busy time of year on the data front! A few more updates are available related to data collection, data resources, and data communication:

• The 2010-2011 Data Collection Schedule has been posted for SIMS, EPIMS, and the new SCS (Student Course Schedule) data collection. I hope to see some of our region's district data managers at the Data Collection Information Session this Friday morning in Duxbury.
  
• The Department has launched a new Parent/Guardian MCAS Information Page.
  
• The DART (District Analysis and Review) Tool has been updated to include 2010 data, and a variety of improvements have been made based on user feedback.

District Analysis and Review Tool (DART)

Last week, a new state tool known as "DART" (District Analysis and Review Tool) was introduced to the folks who attended a regional rollout session that was held at READS Collaborative. For those of you who were not able to attend the hands-on session, I'm happy to report that the Excel-based DART tool is now available online for everyone to access on the DESE site at: http://www.doe.mass.edu/sda/dart/

The DART offers a snapshot of district performance, allowing users to easily track select data elements over time, and make comparisons to the state or to "comparable" districts. The data elements include a broad range of district and school interests including demographic, assessment, student support, educator, financial, and achievement gap data. The tool will be updated online as new information becomes available.