KALAMAZOO--A one-year grant of $425,000 from the Wallace Foundation to Western Michigan University will support the development of education leaders in urban school districts to use data effectively to identify and implement teaching strategies that lead to improved student performance.

"Having access to sound information and knowing how to use it to improve student achievement is central to education reform in Michigan," says Dr. Jianping Shen, WMU professor of teaching, learning and leadership who is the project's co-director. "If our children are going to be successful, we need to ensure that we develop the ability of our district and school leaders to be good consumers of data and help them use the information to drive changes in instruction that lead to student achievement."

WMU will lead a statewide coalition of educators to develop a new system to assist school leaders, who are often overwhelmed by massive amounts of data, in using data as a tool to making instructional decisions that lead to the improvement of student performance. The coalition includes the governor's office, the state Board of Education, the Legislature, major education organizations and other universities.

The project will begin in public school districts in Detroit, Flint, Benton Harbor and Lansing. Principals and then teachers in four schools in each district will help researchers build a model for data selection and use that can be used in schools statewide.

The initial year's $425,000 grant is renewable for each of two additional years for a total of up to $1.275 million, based on evidence of sufficient progress. The effort is funded as part of the Wallace Foundation's education leadership initiative, which aims to strengthen leadership policies and practices at the state, district and school levels toward the goal of improving student achievement.

The grant will be used to train district and school leaders to interpret and utilize student achievement data to determine how changes in instruction will lead to the improved performance of all students. By using data as a compass to guide instruction in the classroom, school and district leaders will be better able to ensure that the resources being invested in schools is spent wisely and effectively and targets the specific needs of students. What is learned in the project will be disseminated via state-level policies, professional development activities of major educational organizations, and the educational leadership programs in three participating universities.

Read full story:

http://www.wmich.edu/wmu/news/2005/01/045.html