Use of Data

Supporting Child and Student Social, Emotional, Behavioral and Mental Health

This release from the U.S. Department of Education joins the many recent products from ED to support how schools and communities support and see to the well-being of children. “Supporting Child and Student Social, Emotional, Behavioral and Mental Health” provides information and resources to enhance the promotion of mental health and the social and emotional well-being among children and students. This resource highlights 7 key challenges to providing school- or program-based mental health support across early childhood, K–12 schools, and higher education settings, and presents 7 corresponding recommendations. This resource includes many real-world examples of how the recommendations are being put into action by schools, communities, and states across the country.

Read more about the challenges discussed and the recommendations explored, and access the publication here.

Webinar | Stakeholder Engagement in SPP/APRs

This webinar focused on OSEP’s new requirements for Stakeholder Engagement in State Performance Plan/Annual Performance Report (SPP/APR) package for 2020-2025. The webinar’s subtitle is: What Parent Centers Need to Know. The new SPP/APR package requires states to engage stakeholders throughout the entire SPP/APR process and describe its mechanisms for ensuring such engagement, including a description of the activities conducted to increase the participation of diverse groups of parents and build their capacity to take part in the state’s activities to improve outcomes for children with disabilities. Parent Centers have a key role to play in bringing the parent voice to the state’s SPP/APR activities.

Webinar | Finding and Using Section 618 Data

In this webinar, the data team staff from OSEP’s Research to Practice division provide an overview of the types of data that OSEP collects from states and publicly reports under Section 618 of IDEA such as child count and exiting data. Participants are shown how to access the 618 data to answer some commonly asked questions about infants, toddlers, and children with disabilities receiving services under IDEA.

2018 Parent Centers in Action | Data Snapshot

(2019, July) | Useful to Parent Centers who wish to share (with funders, community organizations, and state/local agencies) a snapshot of the Parent Center network’s 2018 work with families and professionals. Parent Centers are a lifeline of support for families of children, youth, and young adults with disabilities. The advocacy they provide is grounded in […]

Using Data to Make Parents Partners in School Improvement Efforts

ESSA requires states and districts to rate schools based on multiple data points (measures) that collectively comprise a state’s “accountability system.” What does it mean when a school is rated as “low performing”?

This short blog emphasizes the importance of parents being informed about and understanding the data measures used to rate schools, so that they can be partners in school improvement activities. The blog also connects you with a 2019 report, which takes a look at how many schools were identified as “struggling” based on ESSA’s requirements. Read the blog and access multiple related resources on school data, report cards, and the value of parent involvement.

Finding the Data

Education data are critical to understanding whether or not America’s children are getting the education they deserve and the education that will prepare them to be successful. Transparency in education data can help stakeholders celebrate well-deserved school successes and inform conversations about efforts to improve our schools.

Finding the Data : A State-by-State Assessment of Education Data Transparency provides a systematic and deeper understanding of how state education agencies compare across a set of 3 broad dimensions of education transparency: accessibility and access, quality, and disaggregation for key student groups. Parents, advocacy organizations, researchers, and other stakeholders need this information to understand the performance and quality of schools in their state.

Read more about the report and access it here.

Fostering Youth Transitions

(2018, November) | Useful to Parent Centers, organizations, and policy makers working with youth in foster care. ___________ Fostering Youth Transitions: Using Data to Drive Policy and Practice Decisions (10 pages) comes from the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The brief discusses: the challenges that young people face while in and exiting care; how foster youth are […]

Video | Using Data to Help Children in Critical Populations

This 5-minute video highlights the benefits of Minnesota’s Early Childhood Longitudinal Data System and how it came to be developed and used to improve outreach to underserved, critical populations and to connect those populations to needed services.

According to the staff at local and state organizations, combining data from different programs and agencies that serve young children allows policymakers and program decision makers to better answer critical questions about the needs of families in their communities, as well as questions about services and programs. Building the data system or developing a process to link existing data was the important first step in this video. After the data were integrated, they were analyzed and interpreted to improve programs, services, and policies.

Read more information about, and connect with, the video and its accompanying materials.

Digest of Education Statistics 2016

(2018, February) | Useful to Parent Centers and all stakeholders in public education. The Digest of Education Statistics is an annual publication of National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), compiling statistical information that covers the broad field of American education from prekindergarten through graduate school. The Digest provides data on a variety of topics, including the […]

Building Stakeholder Knowledge about Data

Data play a role in virtually every aspect of administering early intervention programs (IDEA Part C) and preschool programs (Part B 619). State lead agency staff partner with stakeholders for a variety of purposes, including collaborating to improve programs and preparing annual reports on how programs are implemented. This toolkit from the DaSy Center orients stakeholders to IDEA data and other data-related topics to help them meaningfully participate in conversations about important programmatic issues and decisions.

The toolkit is a resource for IDEA Part C and Part B 619 stakeholders, such as representations on the State Interagency Coordinating Council (SICC) and the State Advisory Panel (SAP), who provide input on issues and decisions that relate to or affect programs that serve young children with development delays and disabilities and their families. Stakeholders can use this toolkit independently, or Part C/Part B 619 staff can work through the toolkit with stakeholders in a facilitated manner.

Learn more about and access the toolkit, including the 7 sections it contains and the questions that guide how information and learning are organized in each section.