The New York State Education Department’s accountability system distorts school performance in absurd ways and with perverse results.
App swarm: giving school leaders the decision support they deserve
State education departments collect formless oceans of data. But they rarely make that data available to school districts in a timely way or in a form that supports decision-making. In New York State, for example, last year’s graduation rates were published at about the same time that this year’s grads walked across the stage. And […]
Cornell Chronicle: Apps put the power of data in hands of NY schools
An recent article in the Cornell Chronicle features two apps designed and developed by Prism Decision Systems: SchoolBenchmarker™ and Budget Playground™. “Our overarching goal is the transformation of how statewide education data is being used by schools,” said Sean Brady, president of Prism Decision Systems LLC. “Previously, education data was used primarily for reporting. It was rarely used to support decision making.” Read on at http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/June12/SchoolTools.html
Benchmarking as an improvement tool
Race to the Top has school improvement teams working especially hard to improve performance. With the the New York State Center for Rural School’s official release of the innovative SchoolBenchmarker™ it’s a perfect time to ask: How can I use benchmarking as a school improvement tool? Read on at http://prismdecision.com/benchmarking-as-an-improvement-tool
Prism releases SchoolBenchmarker? in beta
Prism Decision Systems, LLC has released SchoolBenchmarker™ in beta. Want to try it out? SchoolBenchmarker? helps you identify benchmark schools so that you can Set achievable academic targets based on demonstrated best-in-class performance. Discover the practices that high performing, similar schools use to achieve their best-in-class performance. We believe SchoolBenchmarker™ will be very useful to […]