Rob

Waldron, President & CEO rwaldron@cainc.com Office: (978) 313-1208 Mobile: (617) 304-5411

65 th A nnual E ducation W riters A ssociation N ational S eminar May 1 9, 2 012

Questions to Ask: How Districts Implement Data Driven Instruction 1. How much has the district spent on technology? 2. How many separate software products are there in the district? 3. How do you measure whether the spending has been effective? Is there independent verification that it has been effective? 4. Do the products you use operate the same for all students or do they adapt to individual students levels/needs? 5. Given that state test scores are the result of how students perform on one day during the year and results often come back when the students have moved on to new grades with new teachers, how do you measure student growth outside of state test scores? 6. How are you using data to drive instruction throughout the year? How does the data change whats happening in the classroom? 7. No, really. 8. What do the teachers think of the districts data plan? 9. How are the products going to be revised over time? How will you keep up with the changing standards? Did you make a one-time purchase or buy a subscription? 10. If you hate the product and it doesnt produce results, do you get your money back? Did you ask for that? 11. How do you know that you got the best price? 12. Now that you are gathering data in a new way, what has changed for the district, the principals, the teachers, the students, the parents? 13. Did anyone involved in the purchasing of these products get taken on a trip?

How S chools U se D ata t o I mprove L earning