Adrienne Lu reports:
A growing number of states are expanding the way they use student and school data. Teachers easily tap into data about their students’ performance to adjust how they teach, and parents can log into networks to learn how their children are doing, according to a new report by the Data Quality Campaign, a Washington-based nonprofit that advocates using data to improve student achievement.
Along the way, questions about student privacy and other concerns are mounting.
Among the report’s findings:
- Teachers this year can access information about their students through secure state web sites or portals in 35 states, an increase from 28 states in 2011. Teachers can view multiple years’ worth of information about individual students, including courses taken and attendance.
- In 17 states, teacher training programs can tap into information about how their graduates are performing in the classroom, up from six states in 2011. The data show how students in those teachers’ classrooms perform on standardized tests.
- Parents in 14 states can access electronic data about their children.
- Thirty-one states use data to identify the students most at risk of academic failure or dropping out, up from 18 in 2011.
- Forty-five states have policies requiring the maintenance or use of school data systems, up from 36 in 2011.
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