When the COVID-19 pandemic drove schools online in March 2020, state education leaders were left without access to data needed to understand how best to support students. The pandemic revealed the strengths and limitations of state education data systems while inspiring new strategies for collecting, reporting and using data. In 2021, DataSmith…

The work of the National Forum on Education Statistics (Forum) is a key aspect of the National Cooperative Education Statistics System (Cooperative System). The Cooperative System was established to produce and maintain, with the cooperation of the states, comparable and uniform education information and data that are useful for policymaking at…

The goal of safely and sustainably reopening K-12 school buildings for in-person learning is widely recognized as critical to minimizing the impact of academic, social, emotional, and mental strains brought forth by the COVID-19 pandemic. In order for in-person learning to succeed on an ongoing basis, schools must be able to offer safe…

Educators employ different methods of teaching and learning to help their students succeed. One such method is personalized learning, which aims to tailor instruction to the needs, talents, and skills of each individual learner. Rapid advances in technology platforms and digital content over the last decade have enabled more widespread use of…

Concerns about the equitable distribution of school funding within and across school districts have led to new federal data collections on school-level expenditures. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) required states to collect and report, for the first time, school-level data on both personnel and non-personnel expenditures…

Communicators create clear engagement strategies and compelling messages, relentlessly reaching out using the latest tools, tactics and techniques. But many communicators are not sure whether those efforts are penetrating or engaging key audiences, particularly with the fire hose of information flooding through emails and mainstream and social…

Of the many inequities in the education system, gaps in access to strong teaching have proven to be among the most stubborn. That is not to say that there are not excellent teachers in high-poverty schools. Research shows an indisputable and wide-spread pattern in schools and districts across the country: Low-income children and children of color…

With the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), state education agencies (SEAs) and local educational agencies (LEAs) have stepped up activities to broadly expand their data collection and reporting systems. The Data Quality Campaign (DQC) has advocated strongly for states to build robust student-level longitudinal data systems based on…

As a part of Ohio's program review and evaluation of vocational education, the report is concerned with a study of the costs of operating vocational education programs throughout the State. A cost analysis system for secondary level vocational education instructional programs was developed in 1970 and has been restudied each succeeding year. The…