Technology Tools Help Educators Make Better Informed Decisions for Students

An Interview With Michigan’s Center for Educational Performance and Information (CEPI) Director Meg Ropp

Data. It’s a word used often in talk about schools these days. Data collection and reporting requirements play a critical role in both federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law and state Education YES! accreditation. And according to a growing number of experts, when educators use student data to drive decisions, students learn and achieve at higher levels.

In her role as director of Michigan’s Center for Educational Performance and Information (CEPI), Meg Ropp oversees the collection, management, and reporting of school performance data for every public school and public school academy (charter schools) in Michigan. It’s a process that poses huge technology challenges, since it involves coordinating data from thousands of schools using dozens of data management systems.

We talked with Ropp recently and discovered how CEPI is making these diverse systems work together to improve schools and raise student achievement.

LC: First of all, what are “data”? Why are they useful for educators at local, district, and state levels?

MR: Data are simply information that tell a story—they are facts and figures that can help us draw conclusions.

Different education groups use data in a variety of different ways, but, generally, data help people make decisions. Let’s take student attendance data, for example. Parents might look at their child’s attendance report and decide to discipline the child for too many unexcused absences. A principal might decide to close the high school campus for freshman, because attendance data show too many ninth graders skipping classes after lunch. The state looks at attendance data and calculates how much money to send a district.

LC: Which people need which data to make which decisions?

MR: Parents need data to make decisions about their own child. They can track their child’s attendance, grades, and test scores to see if the child needs extra support. Some parents look at school-level data when choosing a school for their child to attend.

Teachers need data to help them make decisions about what to teach, at what pace, and with which children. Homework and test scores, as well as data they collect by observing and listening to students can help teachers make better decisions. Teachers can also use information about schools to help them decide where they might like to work.

Principals, superintendents, and other school leaders need school- and district-level data that show them how safely, effectively, or efficiently their schools are working. They use the data to make decisions about which problem areas to tackle first. They might study Michigan Education Assessment Program (MEAP) scores to design a tutoring program to serve students who are falling behind. School leaders might also look at student and personnel data and decide to recruit more Spanish-speaking teachers to serve a growing Hispanic population.

State and federal policymakers use reports of data from districts in order to comply with state and federal law. Policymakers can use data to target extra help to schools that need it most. They also use data to determine things like how much money schools receive, whether or not teachers are qualified to teach, and whether or not a school has made adequate yearly progress (AYP).

LC: How is technology helping educators to collect, store, and analyze all the data?

MR: A growing number of schools are using student information systems—dynamic, digital repositories of names, birth dates, grades, attendance, assignments, lunch status, and other important data on each and every student.

In many districts, the student information system (SIS) has become a key tool that helps schools report and analyze important student information. They also provide a handy way for parents to keep up-to-speed on their child’s progress in school, since they make it easier for teachers to post reports on a student’s attendance, assignments, and grades. The systems come in a variety of options, and the list of vendors is growing.

Costs for these systems vary. In addition to full-featured student management systems offered by vendors, school districts may program and maintain their own system or use a no-cost system maintained and provided by one or more Intermediate School Districts. CEPI does not review or endorse vendor offerings, rather, we specify that districts must upload data files with fields in a specified format that can be generated by any system.

LC: What percentage of Michigan schools currently use technology-based student information systems (SIS)?

MR: I suspect that a majority of districts use some student information system, but CEPI does not monitor this activity, and we only see the end-products—the data files that districts submit to us.

LC: What role does CEPI play in all this?

MR: CEPI was created by an executive order in 2000 with the charge to develop and manage data collection systems for student, school personnel, and school-level data. Public Act 180 of 2003 expands CEPI’s role to coordinate the collection of all data required by state and federal law from all entities receiving funds under the state school aid act, which include local schools districts, which are also called local education agencies (LEA); intermediate school districts (ISD); and public school academies (PSA). CEPI then reviews and reports the data in a number of ways. We continuously work to improve the quality of the collection-analysis-reporting cycle by reviewing the data, then making changes to the cycle where necessary.

CEPI’s next major focus will be to provide districts, policymakers, and the public with reports and tools to query these data sets within the CEPI data management system. Personally, I am passionate about this final step in the data collection process. I am committed to providing a quick turnaround on data so educators can make timely instructional leadership decisions for students and schools.

LC: What benefit does CEPI offer?

MR: Through its data collection systems, CEPI has been working to replace old paper forms and eliminate duplicate reporting to the state and federal government. During the next few years, CEPI’s technology tools will connect and merge data systems, allow districts to enter data, review targeted reports of the data, and make corrections before they complete a final submission. These systems will increase data quality at the time of submission and ensure that Michigan’s school districts enter data only once.

LC: What have been your greatest challenges through this process and how have you addressed them?

MR: There have been three main challenges. First, CEPI had to figure out how to get incompatible technologies and data structures to work together. One important tool in the process has been posting data manuals with data field descriptions on the CEPI Web site. This helps vendors and school district personnel apply the same interpretations to the data elements they submit.

Second, CEPI currently provides end-user customer support to over 3,600 individuals in LEAs, ISDs, and PSAs. Detailed user guides with step-by-step directions and illustrative screen shots have helped us assist all those customers.

Third, developing an integrated data management system with so many data sets and robust reporting tools is a challenge that CEPI has embraced since its inception. That challenge has become more complex with the level of detail required by the NCLB.

LC: Who worked with CEPI to set up the system?

MR: CEPI currently coordinates the Data Definition Review Group that includes staff members from the Department of Education (MDE), Labor and Economic Growth (DLEG), and Treasury. The group will add new fields, refine current fields, or delete those that are no longer required. Local school associations and districts provided input on original data definitions. We worked with vendors and various state agencies to determine how local school districts’ existing systems could interface with the state. We wanted to avoid re-creating a system that was already working.

Also, CEPI has worked with the U.S. Open e-Learning Consortium, a group of software com-panies and school systems that created the Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) in 1999. SIF rules and definitions allow various software programs to share information quickly, seamlessly, and securely. CEPI is also a member of the Decision Support Architecture Consortium, a new program coordinated by the Council of Chief State School Officers that offers a review of current systems and recommen-dations for future implementation.

LC: Are there any guidelines educators can follow to choose among the technology tools available?

MR: Our newer applications will use Extensible Markup Language (XML) file formats, which make it easier and less costly for vendors and district staff to make the changes required by new legislation or edits for data quality. Using XML-based software that conforms to SIF allows schools and school systems to share data without any additional programming. SIF could also make meeting the requirements of NCLB much easier.

LC: What, if any, are the implications from this type of data use for students who have traditionally struggled to make progress in school (i.e., students with disabilities, English language learners, etc.)?

MR: When the CEPI educational data management system connects student demographic data submitted through the Student Record Student Database (SRSD) with results of performance assessment data (MEAP, MI-Access, ELL assessments) in a secure environment, district leaders can examine trends over time, identify learning gaps, and then target financial and qualified personnel resources to areas of need.

LC: How do you answer critics who fear new accountability standards force us to focus too much on data and not enough on students?

MR: As I said earlier, data are just information that tell a story. Behind every number is a student. When we create better ways to collect and study student data, we tell more accurate stories about what students need from the adults around them in order to improve. If technology tools are leveraged to return the data quickly, the data become more useful to the student, whose educational needs are immediate and vitally important.

For more information, contact: Meg Ropp, Director, Center for Educational Performance and Information, 608 W. Allegan St., Lansing, MI 48933, (517) 241-2374, roppm@michigan.gov.

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