Schools and Data: The Educator's Guide for Using Data to Improve Decision Making

"An excellent refresher course or a way to start thinking about how to improve student outcomes."
Jacob O. Stampen, Department of Educational Administration
University of Wisconsin-Madison

"Creighton′s descriptions of the applicability and helpfulness of statistics for educators is especially strong. His use of plain language and school-based examples is crucial."
Scott McLeod, Assistant Professor
University of Cincinnati, OH

Cut through the statistics maze to improve instructional leadership!

Principals and teachers can now learn to maneuver through the myriad of statistical data to help create goals and strategies for change and improvement based on solid findings.

Comprehensive but accessible, Schools and Data focuses on the relevance of statistics in the day-to-day lives of principals and teachers. This step-by-step, easy-to-follow, easy-to-understand guide to using existing school data can help any school leader facilitate more appropriate and effective decision making. The author provides a less-threatening approach to statistical analysis based on actual school situations.

Key areas of exploration include:

• The role of statistics in the lives of principals and teachers
• An overview of data with real-life examples
• Step-by-step procedures for collecting and organizing data
• Statistical methods for interpreting data
• Spotting and understanding relationships
• Both SPSS and GB-STAT software procedures

The information is presented with easy-to-follow instructions, illustrations, and pertinent examples that educators can readily understand. This is an essential resource for any educator who wants to break through the statistical confusion to improve skills in problem analysis, program evaluation, data-driven decision making, and report preparation.

Theodore B. Creighton is currently a Professor and Program Leader in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Virginia Tech. Prior to joining the faculty at Virginia Tech, he served as Director of the Center for Research and Doctoral Studies in Educational Leadership at Sam Houston State University and as a Professor in Educational Leadership at Idaho State University. His background includes teaching at all grade levels in Washington, D.C.; Cleveland, Ohio; and Los Angeles, California. His administrative experience includes serving as principal and superintendent in both Fresno and Kern Counties, California. He holds a BS degree in teacher education from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, a master′s degree in educational administration from California State University Long Beach, and a doctorate from the University of California Davis.

Though active in many professional organizations, he devotes considerable time to his role as Executive Director of the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration. He also serves as a member of the National Policy Board for Educational Administration (NPBEA), and as a Stafford Faculty Fellow for the National Institute on Leadership, Disabilities and Students Placed at Risk (NILDSPAR). He recently was appointed as Project Director of the Connexions Knowledge Base Project, an international initiative in collaboration with Rice University charged with assembling the knowledge base in educational administration. His research includes examining the forces of the school principalship, and he is widely published in the area of schools with alternative forms of school leadership.