Below is the Press Release issued by ODE regarding the Federal announcement of IES awards.

This award was earned for Oregon through an application prepared collaboratively by members of the Data Quality Group.

Project development, management, and execution will continue to be a joint collaboration between ODE, EESC, ESDs, K12, and Higher Ed.

As Project Plan documentation is finalized, it will be posted here for review.

July 2, 2007

ODE Wins Federal Grant to Fund Oregon DATA Project

SALEM – State Schools Superintendent Susan Castillo announced that the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences has awarded Oregon a $4.7 million grant for the Oregon DATA Project, a statewide initiative to improve student achievement by collecting, analyzing and using longitudinal data to inform individual instruction. At the district and classroom levels, teachers will be able to use formative data to design effective curricula for their students. The grant proposal was a collaborative effort between the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) and the Educational Enterprise Steering Committee comprised of ODE, ESD, Districts and Postsecondary partners.

“This grant will leverage the excellent investment that ESDs and districts have made in professional development for educators, as well as the new funding we received from legislature for the pK-12 Integrated Data Systems (KIDS) and the Longitudinal Growth Model,” said Doug Kosty, Assistant Superintendent of Assessment and Information Services. “We look forward to partnering with our ESD and District Partners to build on local systems that are already in place and statewide school improvement strategies such as Regional School Improvement Coordinators (RSIC), Teaching and Learning Communities (TLC) and Response to Intervention (RTI).”

“The goal of the professional development materials will be to improve the use of data for teachers, administrators and decision makers as part of their ongoing for the purpose of increasing student achievement,” Kosty said.

The grants are intended to help the states generate and use accurate and timely data to meet reporting requirements, support decision-making, and aid education research. Longitudinal data systems enhance the ability of states to efficiently and accurately manage, analyze, and use education data.

In line with the goals of No Child Left Behind to use scientifically-based research data to improve education, the data systems developed with funds from these grants will help states, districts, schools, and teachers make data-driven decisions to improve student learning, as well as facilitate research to increase student achievement and close achievement gaps. The grantees will be expected to submit annual and final reports on the status of the development and the implementation of these systems.

Thirteen states were awarded grants. The Awardees of the data system grants and their three-year totals, are: Arizona, $6.0 million; Colorado, $4.2 million; District of Columbia, $5.7 million; Indiana, $5.2 million; Kansas, $3.8 million; Maine, $3.2 million; Nebraska, $3.5 million; Nevada, $6.0 million; New Hampshire, $3.2 million; North Carolina, $6.0 million; Oregon, $4.7 million; Utah, $4.6 million; and Virginia, $6.1 million.

Why does Oregon need the DATA Project? Oregon school districts currently collect information about students and staff into electronic databases. Portions of these data are delivered to the state Department of Education in order to meet compliance requirements. In most cases, however, that is the limit of the use of these data. Data are not aggregated, shared, analyzed or effectively used as a part of improving student achievement.

What is being done now? School districts and regional Education Service Districts are beginning to make investments in regional data warehouses and starting to train teachers and administrators how to use data to inform instruction. The Oregon Legislature is making an $8.4 million investment in a project that facilitates compliance reporting and the movement of standardized student transcripts horizontally across the state. The Pre-Kindergarten thru Grade 16 Integrated Data System (KIDS) is an enterprise-level data warehouse with standardized business rules for transporting, securing, managing and using data.

How will the DATA Project fit in? The Oregon DATA Project (Direct Access to Achievement) is intended to add significant value to the foundation being built through the state’s ongoing investments in data quality. It will do so by strengthening the structure of the longitudinal data system that is growing already at the state level, and by providing stakeholders with comprehensive training and informed access to data.

What will The DATA Project look like? The outcomes of the project will include a system of regional data warehouses containing highly aggregated local and state level data, coupled with professional development that will allow teachers and administrators to effectively engage in ad-hoc query and analysis of instructionally relevant student-level data from nearly anywhere in the state.

Susan Castillo, State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Gene Evans, Communications Director,
Telephone (503) 947-5737
http://www.ode.state.or.us