July 2004 — SETDA
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Virginia: Data Warehouse Helps Hanover County Public Schools Raise Student Achiev
The ice is starting to retreat from the warmer parts of the Earth. Early man, a hunter, is beginning to make his way in the Stone Age. His entire existence depends upon what he can scavenge from his surroundings; survival is the measure of his success.
When it comes to data, many educators are hunters. After they have gathered all the information they need, the real challenges begin. How is the data entered into an electronic format that can be manipulated? What tools are available to retrieve the data? Before No Child Left Behind (NCLB), it was possible to survive in this sea of data just by getting one's feet wet. Anecdotal narratives about student performance were the rule of the day, and many decisions about curriculum and instruction were based on this information. Time was not spent reflecting on real data because little or no data existed in a format that could be analyzed.
Timely Test Results
Almost five years ago, Hanover County Public Schools began its quest to provide the educational community with the tools necessary to make data-driven decisions. School Superintendent Stewart Roberson chaired a committee of district instructional and technical members to develop a method for examining the implications of longitudinal assessment of student achievement. The district's Instructional Decision Support System (IDSS) was the outcome of months of research. IDSS is a data warehouse that focuses on student achievement.
Simply put, a data warehouse consists of different data sources (e.g., main student database, state standardized tests, Stanford tests, SAT, ACT, district generated data, etc.) feeding into a robust database housed on a powerful server that is accessible to administrators throughout the district. The final key component is a user-friendly interface that provides nontechnical people with easy access to information from their computers. Due to recent advances, this solution now has a price that most school districts can afford.
The two key pieces of software that Hanover County Public Schools selected for this project were the Microsoft SQL Server for its database and solutions from Business Objects for delivering the content to administrators. There are many reports that administrators generate on the fly, while complicated queries are created by a more technical person and posted to a Web site for principals across the district.
One of the greatest challenges in administering a data warehouse is keeping the data current. The Hanover County Public Schools system has created procedures that run each night to move data from its student information system into the warehouse. In the fall of 2001, Virginia initiated a program to assist in providing timely reporting of its standardized test results. It is an online assessment system for all high school courses that are tested. To date, 120 of the state's 132 school districts participate in this online testing.
Customizing Curricula
IDSS has also changed the way the district d'es business. The system allows teachers and administrators to analyze data and change the curriculum and instruction based on facts, not feelings. Each year Dr. Phil Pavlidis, assistant principal of Stonewall Jackson Middle School, leads the staff in a "data day." Teachers spend the morning grouped by departments analyzing student data. In the afternoon, they regroup by teams and repeat the exercise. At the end of the day, they make recommendations that have helped improve their school.
