{"id":10031,"date":"2012-01-18T14:42:52","date_gmt":"2012-01-18T19:42:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raleighpublicrecord.org\/?p=10031"},"modified":"2012-01-19T11:04:53","modified_gmt":"2012-01-19T16:04:53","slug":"harvard-fellows-tackle-wake-schools-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/news\/2012\/01\/18\/harvard-fellows-tackle-wake-schools-data\/","title":{"rendered":"Harvard Fellows Tackle Wake Schools Data"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A $700,000 grant awarded by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gse.harvard.edu\/~pfpie\/index.php\/sdp\/\">the Center for Education Policy Research<\/a> at Harvard University is set to begin helping Wake County schools more effectively use data in its decision making.<\/p>\n<p>Wake\u2019s two-year participation in the Strategic Data Project will primarily provide data on teacher effectiveness and students\u2019 success rate in post-secondary institutions such as college.<\/p>\n<p>While researchers at Harvard will be focused on teacher effectiveness and college-going students\u2019 success for just six months of the two years, four fellows working within the district will be allowed to focus on whatever WCPSS dictates for the full two years.<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-10032\" style=\"border-image: initial; border-width: 1px; border-color: black; border-style: solid;\" title=\"strategic.data.project\" src=\"http:\/\/www.raleighpublicrecord.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/strategic.data_.project-300x102.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"102\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Two of the fellows will be chosen from outside the district by the Strategic Data Project and then approved by WCPSS. The other two will be chosen by WCPSS from within the district.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the things we\u2019ll use it for is putting together a very strong review process and performance measures for the student assignment plan,\u201d said Chief Transformation Officer Judy Peppler.<\/p>\n<p>Another primary focus will be the achievement gap, said Superintendent Tony Tata. The fellows will compare the performance of socioeconomically disadvantaged students in traditional schools, year-round schools with track-out programs and year-round schools without track-out programs.<\/p>\n<p>Track-out programs provide tutoring and student resources even while year-round students are on break.<\/p>\n<p>Tata explained his impetus for comparing the different calendars.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve had some principals with high socioeconomically disadvantaged student populations to request year-round status so that they could have the shorter track-out periods, because then they don\u2019t have to catch up the students at the beginning of the school year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The data fellows will also be used to monitor national best practices for evaluating how elementary school teachers identify students who need extra help and will examine Wake\u2019s Algebra 1 math placement policy.<\/p>\n<p>Executive Director of the Center for Education Policy Research Jon Fullerton said that school systems often have massive amounts of underutilized data that could be used for more effective decision-making.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe work with partner districts to help explore the existing data and help them gain insight into what works and what doesn\u2019t,\u201d he said. \u201cWe provide examples of how you can use the fairly massive amounts of data that school districts are sitting on to better plan and manage the organization.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tata agrees.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnything we can do to enrich our ability and then collect and analyze data and then make good decisions based on that data is a good thing for the system,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The Strategic Data Project is primarily funded by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gatesfoundation.org\/Pages\/home.aspx\">Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Wake County school system recently received one of 10 national grants that will provide new employees and resources to WCPSS to help make better use of the school system\u2019s data. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24024,"featured_media":10032,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15,23,55],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10031"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24024"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}