The Data Toolkit: Ten Tools for Supporting School Improvement

How to accelerate analysis into action

Using data for school improvement is a key goal of Race to the Top, and now is the time to make data-driven school improvement a priority. However, many educators are drowning in data. Boost your professional learning community′s ability to translate data into action with this new book from Pam Robbins and Robert T. Hess. The Data Toolkit provides ten easy-to-use tools that don′t require statistical expertise, can be implemented in a timely manner, and facilitate problem-solving at the classroom, school, and district levels. These proven methods help educators:

• Frame the questions
• Drive the conversation
• Engage in productive reflection
• Uncover understandings
• Create a data-driven plan
• Achieve and monitor results

Written in an educator-friendly format each chapter contains instructions on using the tool, a sample scenario, and examples―practical resources that will help your PLC be the best it can be.
Also included are case studies that show how data teams, PLCs, and individual teachers have used the book′s methods in their own settings. The culminating school improvement mapping tool guides the team through designing an action plan focused on increasing student learning and achievement outcomes.

Rob Hess is a practicing superintendent with 10 years of experience as a secondary teacher. He has been an administrator at the high school, middle school, and K-8 levels and served in the central office as a Student Achievement Leader. In 2003 he founded Breakthrough Schools, a grass roots network of educators dedicated to helping schools and districts achieve breakthrough school improvement results. He earned his doctorate from the University of Oregon and has taught classes at the University of Oregon, Oregon State University, Willamette University, and Lewis & Clark College on the following subjects: teacher leadership, professional development for administrators, priority leadership, school improvement planning, data analysis for school improvement, and research for education. The Data Toolkit is his fourth book. He frequently presents on the topics of: teacher leadership, professional learning communities, school culture, quality school improvement, and teacher/principal evaluation systems. His webpage can be visited at: www.thedatacoach.net, and he can be reached at: robhess1@mac.com

Pam Robbins earned her doctorate in educational administration from the University of California, Berkeley. Currently, she consults with school systems, professional organizations, State Departments of Education, leadership academies, and corporations throughout the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Europe, Asia, and South America. Her presentation topics include professional learning communities, effective teaching, how the brain learns, emotional intelligence, leadership, teaching in the block schedule, peer coaching, school culture, and presentation skills. Pam has served as a teacher, high school basketball coach, administrator, director of special projects and research, and director of training for the North Bay California Leadership Academy. She has lectured at several universities, authored and co-authored books, and developed training materials for several principals’ academies.