"Using Education Indicators: A Forum Guide for State and Local Education Agencies" was developed to provide timely and useful information on education indicators, how their collection and use have changed over time, and how agencies use them strategically. Since the publication of the 2005 document "Forum Guide to Education…

The purpose of these guidelines is to support the execution of cost analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis of educational programs. The steps involved in conducting a cost analysis are presented in four stages with explicit examples used throughout: designing your cost analysis, collecting cost data using the ingredients method, analyzing cost…

In spring 2020, nearly all school districts across the nation transitioned to virtual education during extended school closures caused by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. K-12 education agencies pivoted to virtual education in a short amount of time with limited options available for developing a virtual education program. This…

"The Forum Guide to Strategies for Education Data Collection and Reporting (SEDCAR)" was created to provide timely and useful best practices for education agencies that are interested in designing and implementing a strategy for data collection and reporting, focusing on these as key elements of the larger data process. It builds upon…

This technical assistance paper provides policy and guidance to individuals with test administration responsibilities in adult education programs. The Florida assessment policies and guidelines presented in this technical assistance paper are appropriate for state and federal reporting. Therefore, guidance and procedures regarding the selection…

To support states in improving educational results and functional outcomes for children with disabilities while ensuring compliance with Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) through state monitoring activities, a six-step inquiry process has been developed. The six steps describe a chronological process to assist states in selecting…

As the education and workforce development community looks more and more to CTE to help ensure students are both college and career ready, understanding and using CTE data and research becomes increasingly important. This is the first in a series of six practitioner training modules developed as part of the Career & Technical Education (CTE)…

The authors present a pedagogical primer on the highly controversial business strategies of data mining and automated prediction. They provide a summary that allows business professors and students the opportunity to better understand the privacy and ethical issues that arise from high-tech, Internet-based organizations implementing programs to…

This document includes guidance, considerations, and resources for state staff and local practitioners who are determining Preschool Special Education eligibility remotely, due in part to COVID-19. To accomplish this, many states are now exploring a variety of approaches such as teleconference, videoconference, and sharing information and video…

This guide is designed for use by school, district, and state education agency staff to improve the effectiveness of efforts to collect and use discipline data, including reporting accurate and timely data to the federal government. It explains the importance of collecting discipline data, identifies key considerations for agencies implementing…

The "Forum Guide to Data Governance" highlights how data governance programs benefit education agencies and provide timely and useful best practices, examples, and resources for agencies implementing or updating their data governance programs. This resource is intended to address the needs of federal, state, and local agencies related…

The purpose of this guide is to provide timely and useful best practice information for collecting and managing data about students who have temporarily or permanently enrolled in another school or district because of a crisis. It includes lessons learned and provides recommendations for collecting and maintaining data about students who may move…

For more than a decade teacher residencies have prepared classroom-ready teachers for hard-to-staff subjects and high-need schools. Across the country, mounting evidence shows that residencies produce effective teachers who stay in the profession longer and produce greater student achievement than traditionally-trained teachers. No residency,…

Improving school climate takes time and commitment from a variety of people in a variety of roles. This document outlines key action steps to engage students in the school climate improvement process. Key action steps are provided for the following strategies: (1) Participate in planning for school climate improvements; (2) Engage stakeholders in…

A quality rating and improvement system (QRIS) is a voluntary state assessment system that uses multidimensional data on early childhood education programs to rate program quality, support quality improvement efforts, and provide information to families about the quality of available early childhood education programs. QRISs have two components:…