Data-Driven Decision Making | News
Texas Education Agency Rolling Out Statewide Data Warehouse
The Texas Education Agency is deploying a longitudinal data system for the roughly 1,200 school districts across the state.
Built on eScholar's Complete Data Warehouse for PK-12, the system will be used to house a range of student and school information that can be accessed by district administrators and used as part of their decision-making process.
CDW-PK12 is a commercial system for collecting and managing data for longitudinal and comprehensive data analysis in primary and secondary education. It encompasses more than 3,000 data points focused on PK-12, from administrative and financial records to teacher and student data to course and assessment information. It supports a range of commercial and open technologies, including Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle Database, and ODBC-complaint tools.
According to eScholar, the TEA implementation will be deployed as a "district-facing warehouse ... [that] will allow administrators and teachers access to valuable operational and student-level information from which to make decisions. The information that is collected ranges from student attendance records to financial budgets. eScholar CDW integrates and consolidates this information--otherwise dispersed across the enterprise and in disparate data sources--managing data integrity and applying data quality and validation to ensure consistency. eScholar CDW presents the information for analysis and reporting to a wide range of stakeholders and users, including administrators at all levels, teachers, counselors, support staff and students."
According to Shawn Bay, CEO and founder of eScholar: "Our work with Texas will continue to help us push beyond the way most longitudinal data systems are being used and thought of today," he said in a prepared statement. "Data will be updated frequently and accessible in ways that allow educators to help individual students quickly. We are honored to be asked to play a key role in this important initiative."
Twelve other state agencies are currently using CDW-PK-12, representing, in total, more than 3,500 districts and about 35 percent of the student population in the United States, according to eScholar. Additional details can be found on eScholar's site.
About the Author
David Nagel is editorial director of 1105 Media's Education Technology Group and editor-in-chief of THE Journal and STEAM Universe. A 25-year publishing veteran, Nagel has led or contributed to dozens of technology, art and business publications.
He can be reached at [email protected]. You can also connect with him on LinkedIn at or follow him on Twitter at @THEJournalDave (K-12) or @CampusTechDave (higher education).