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SchoolBenchmarker™, an innovative school comparison tool
SchoolBenchmarker? is an innovative school comparison tool. It allows any school in New York State to find similar schools performing at higher levels. Prism has recently updated SchoolBenchmarker? for Cornell’s New York State Center for Rural Schools.
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
SchoolBenchmarker™ getting rave user reviews
Try SchoolBenchmarker™ now and let us know if you agree with the enthusiastic user reviews we are receiving. For example: “SchoolBenchmarker™ is fantastic! In a few minutes, I can get the benchmarking information it took my district a month to get last year working on our own!” – Mark P. Mondanaro, Superintendent of Schools, Kenmore-Town of Tonawanda UFSD
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 […]
Susan Arbetter interviews Sean Brady re: NYS open data initiative
Click on the play button below to listen to the podcast of the March 8, 2012 interview on The Capitol Pressroom where Susan Arbetter discusses an open letter from Sean Brady and Cornell professor John Sipple to Andrew Cuomo advocating that the governor support a New York State government open data initiative. The letter appeared […]
Dear Governor Cuomo, Free the data. Please.
Around the world, governments are opening access to public data sets and allowing the public to find, download and use machine-readable data sets generated by the government. These initiatives spur innovation and creativity, increase government accountability and transparency, reduce waste and fraud, and improve our quality of life. Yet New York State lags miserably. This open letter to Andrew Cuomo exhorts the Governor to give the public free access to machine readable New York State government data in non-proprietary formats, to convert that data into open linked standards to allow it to be easily connected to other data, and to encourage broad, innovative use of the data by providing the appropriate tools and incentives.
Prism delivers Budget Playground™ iPad® app to Cornell
Prism recently delivered an iPad® app to Cornell University’s New York State Center for Rural Schools. Budget Playground allows school districts to create multi-year budget scenarios. They can then modify those scenarios in real-time to help boards of education agree to budgets that will be acceptable to district stakeholders.