Digital Learning, Data, and Technology
The Digital Learning Imperative: How Teaching and Technology Meet Today’s Educational Challenges 
Report
January 4, 2012
This report outlines how digital learning can connect middle and high school students with better teaching and learning experiences while also addressing three major challenges facing the nation’s education system—access to good teaching, tight budgets, and boosting student achievement. But simply slapping a netbook on top of a textbook will not lead to improvements. Effective educational technology strategies must link the “Three Ts”—teaching, technology, and use of time—with overall whole-school reform strategies and proven pedagogical practices to accelerate the pace of improvement and ensure that all students benefit from the opportunity that digital learning offers.
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Digital Learning and Technology: Federal Policy Recommendations to Seize the Opportunity—and Promising Practices That Inspire Them Policy Brief
August 2, 2011
Technology and digital learning provide innovative opportunities to improve education, personalize learning for each student, and have better student achievement. This brief highlights the promising practices that some schools are employing to transform student learning and the federal policies that can assist schools in making that transformation. The promising practices shared in this brief point to several key areas in which technology and digital learning can make a difference for teachers and students. They include examples that illustrate how some states, districts, and schools are maximizing the potential of technology and digital learning to change student outcomes. The federal policies emphasize that the federal government has the opportunity to assist states, school districts, and public schools by creating policies that encourage innovation and provide options for digital learning and technology.
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10 Elements of High-Quality Digital Learning Report
December 1, 2010
On December 1, 2010, Jeb Bush, governor of Florida 1999-2007, and Bob Wise, governor of West Virginia 2001-2005, released the "10 Elements of High-Quality Digital Learning." The ten elements represent the recommendations of the Digital Learning Council (DLC), a diverse group of more than one hundred leaders in education, government, philanthropy, business, technology and policy, and is meant to serve as a roadmap of reform for local, state, and federal officials to advance digital learning.
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Digital Learning Council
Launched August 18, 2010
On Agust 18, 2010, Jeb Bush, governor of Florida 1999–2007, and Bob Wise, governor of West Virginia 2001–2005, launched the Digital Learning Council (DLC) to identify policies that will integrate current and future technological innovations into public education. The DLC unites a diverse group of more than fifty leaders from education, government, philanthropy, business, technology, and think tanks to develop the roadmap of reform for local, state and federal lawmakers, and policymakers.
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The Online Learning Imperative: A Solution to Three Looming Crises in Education Issue Brief
Updated June 2010
Currently, K–12 education in the United States is dealing with three major crises, each of which on its own is capable of wreaking havoc on schools and communities around the nation, but together are an all-out perfect storm. Simultaneously, the U.S. education system is facing a growing workforce whose mounting needs for education and training will not be met by the nation’s current public education system; declining state fiscal revenues; and mounting teacher shortages, further crippling low-performing secondary schools. The time for merely rethinking and upgrading the role of technology in education has passed; policy decisions today must embrace a dramatic transformation of teaching and learning. Technology can no longer be thought of simply as an “add-on” tool in education, but rather an integral part of the total educational environment. This issue brief describes these looming crises and suggests ways that online learning can lead the U.S. education system out of them.
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Online Learning: Addressing Challenges and Seizing Opportunities (State Profiles)
May 21, 2010
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Achieving a Wealth of Riches: Delivering on the Promise of Data to Transform Teaching and Learning Policy Brief
August 13, 2009
It is clear that throughout the nation, teaching and learning must be transformed to ensure all students are graduating from high school ready for college and careers. While many policy discussions focus on data-driven decisionmaking as the answer, too often these conversations do not include how classroom teachers can and should use data to improve instruction, the kinds of data that would be most useful to teachers, and the challenges inherent in teachers’ use of data. Ensuring that teachers are rich in data, information, and skills that enable them to improve student achievement requires focused attention from leaders at all levels, including federal policymakers. This brief addresses why using data represents a significant shift for most teachers in how they perform their jobs; explains the importance of using multiple types of data to affect learning; details the infrastructure necessary to encourage teachers’ use of data; and provides federal policy recommendations.
August 13, 2009 Event
Press Release
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Moving Beyond AYP: High School Performance Indicators Policy Brief
June 29, 2009
As education stakeholders look ahead to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) reauthorization, there is near-universal consensus that the current federal accountability and school improvement systems need to be reinvented, infused with more and better data, and tailored to meet the individual needs of schools and students. Now, educators, policymakers, and the public are eager for indicators that both better reflect the national goal of graduating all students ready for college and careers and help educators plan and implement strategies for getting them there. Fortunately, a number of high school performance indicators have emerged as being predictive of high school graduation and college and career readiness. These factors include attendance, course success, on-track-to-graduation status, course-taking patterns, success on college- and career-ready assessments, postsecondary success rates, and school climate. This brief, Moving Beyond AYP: High School Performance Indicators, describes the research behind these indicators, measurement options and challenges, and current use across the nation. It also offers recommendations to federal policymakers for supporting the use of multiple, actionable high school performance indicators.
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The chapter below is from Meaningful Measurement: The Role of Assessments in Improving High School Education in the Twenty-First Century Report
June 23, 2009
Assessments and Technology: A Powerful Combination for Improving Teaching and Learning Chapter 9
Erin Martin Gohl, Daniel Gohl, and Mary Ann Wolf of the State Educational Technology Directors Association describe how the use of technology to assess students and to record and analyze performance can result in timely, appropriate, and individualized instruction for all students. They highlight some of the innovative approaches in using technology to assess student progress, address current challenges in the use of technology, and provide recommendations to federal policymakers to overcome those challenges.
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The Next Step: Using Longitudinal Data Systems To Improve Student Success (published by the Data Quality Campaign) PDF
March 2009
Over the next three years, the DQC will continue to assist states in developing data systems based on the 10 essential elements and in using the information to improve student performance. To help ensure that states benefit from their infrastructure investments, the DQC will focus on two high-priority needs: building demand for the newly available information and helping state agencies assist all stakeholders in harnessing this powerful source of information.
March 10, 2009 DQC Event
Alliance Press Release
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Using Early-Warning Data to Improve Graduation Rates: Closing Cracks in the Education System Policy Brief (PDF)
August 26, 2008
This brief explores the power of early-warning data in predicting whether a student will drop out, offers examples of current efforts to use such data to guide secondary school interventions across the country, and discusses the policies that can support these efforts.
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Understanding High School Graduation Rates Fact Sheets
Updated July 2009
Far too many of our high school students—particularly poor and minority students—are leaving school without a high school diploma. Understanding High School Graduation Rates provides the latest graduation rate statistics, demonstrates graduation gaps between demographic groups, illustrates the discrepancies in graduation rates reported by government and independent sources, and examines the economic costs of dropouts to individuals and society.
Learn more about high school graduation rates in your state
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Benefits of and Lessons Learned from Linking Teacher and Student Data (published by the Data Quality Campaign) PDF
December 2007
Increasingly, federal and state leaders are using longitudinal data systems for both policymaking and school improvement. In response, states are investing more resources in the systems’ design, development and use.... One of the most crucial discussions taking place is how to link teacher and student data and the benefits of doing so. Until recently, most states have used these data systems separately, but by linking them, much more can be learned about effective teacher preparation and “what works” to improve teaching and learning in districts, schools and classrooms.
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Measuring What Matters: Creating a Longitudinal Data System to Improve Student Achievement (published by the Data Quality Campaign) PDF
November 2007
This brochure highlights the reasons why state data systems should incorporate longitudinal data to maximize the quality of information used in education.
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Building and Using Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems: Implications for Policy (published by the Data Quality Campaign) PDF
April 2007
During the past year, the Data Quality Campaign (DQC) has generated power behind the issues of data collection, availability and use. A growing network of committed partners at the national, state and institutional levels is shining a brighter and wider spotlight on pragmatic ways to build and use longitudinal data systems to improve educational outcomes. Policymakers at every level face important, timely challenges in building and using data systems; it will take significant investment, support and capacity building at the local, state and national levels to achieve that goal. The policy actions noted here reflect the common concerns, shared vision and lessons learned.
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In response to state requests for information on FERPA, the managing partners of the DQC have worked with the law firm of Holland & Knight to analyze FERPA and how the new roles of SEAs (and their longitudinal data systems) in data collection and sharing can be aligned with FERPA. This issue analysis may serve as a guide to assist states as they build and use state longitudinal data systems in ways that comply with FERPA and fully protect the privacy rights of students and their parents. The DQC values student privacy and strongly supports the use of longitudinal data as an indispensable tool in the effort to improve school performance; this legal analysis concludes that instituting and using these state longitudinal data systems can be done in accordance with FERPA protection of student privacy.
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Good information is critical to improving both the processes and the outcomes of a high-performing education system, and increasing numbers of voices — inside and outside the system — are calling for quality education data to be a national priority. It increasingly is acknowledged that vital policy conversations now under way — conversations about increasing the rigor and relevance of high school, improving teacher quality, promoting higher graduation rates, and reducing achievement gaps among student populations — cannot be successful unless they are informed by reliable longitudinal, student-level data.
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Who’s Counted? Who’s Counting? Understanding High School Graduation Rates Report (PDF)
June 27, 2006
Who’s Counted? Who’s Counting? Understanding High School Graduation Rates explains the reasons why so many different graduation rate formulas and statistics exist, addresses why states report them differently, discusses the limitations and benefits of each method, and – most importantly – defines the policy changes needed to assure that educators, school officials, parents, and the public receive timely and accurate information about how many students are actually graduating so that they can assess their schools’ current effectiveness and make improvements.
Press Release
State Specific Information
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