Blog

You are here:

Home
Blog

Sep72021

Goal Setting for School Improvement

Analytics, School ImprovementBy John Gatta September 7, 2021

The fundamental purpose of setting school improvement goals is to assess the effectiveness of improvement efforts. The utility of the school improvement process rests on the inferences one can draw from meeting a goal. For example, a typical school improvement goal may be â€œincrease the percentage of students meeting standards in grade 4 reading by 5%. While this type of goal is specific and concise, the results will provide little to no information as to the effectiveness of improvement efforts. Why? Because increasing grade 4 reading by 5% is likely an arbitrary goal that is unrelated to school performance and not evidence-based.

Details

Dec32020

New Research shows Negative Effects from Remote Learning

Analytics, School Improvement, Strategic Monitoring, Student SuccessBy John Gatta December 3, 2020

ECRA Group CEO, John Gatta, was interviewed by WGN America’s NewsNation regarding the impact of COVID-19 on student learning.

Details

Oct12020

AASA What Works: Data Analytics to Assess Learning Loss and Recovery

Analytics, Growth Recovery, Partners, School Improvement, Student SuccessBy John Gatta October 1, 2020

Join AASA’s guest, data analytics expert Dr. John Gatta in examining how to quantify learning loss and develop personalized learning recovery plans

Details

Aug272020

Machine Learning Framework to Train a Learning Trajectory Model

Leveraging predictive models to measure learning loss and growth recovery during COVID-19 school closures

Analytics, Growth Recovery, School Improvement, Strategic Monitoring, Student SuccessBy John Gatta August 27, 2020

Measuring learning loss requires that we recognize that student growth is personal in the sense that every individual student’s learning trajectory leading up to the pandemic was different.

Details

Aug192020

Measuring and Recovering Learning Losses During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Analytics, School Improvement, Strategic Monitoring, Student SuccessBy John Gatta August 19, 2020

Documenting learning loss is important as the effects of school closures on learning loss are likely differential and asymmetric, resulting in large losses for some students, and negligible or negative losses for other students.

Details

Oct172019

Effect Sizes as Evidence – The single most important pitfall to avoid

Analytics, School ImprovementBy John Gatta October 17, 2019

Despite widespread use of effect sizes across industries as a standardized measure of impact, effect size calculations remain one of the most incorrectly applied and misinterpreted statistics. An effect size is nothing more than a standardized comparison, or “effect” , that captures the difference between an average value and a meaningful comparison in the metric of standard deviation.

Details

Oct162019

Measuring Social and Emotional Learning

Analytics, Student SuccessBy John Gatta October 16, 2019

Social and emotional learning is about understanding who students are, not what they know. It’s internalizing an awareness that our biological systems are wired so that our emotions and interests drive our attention and, ultimately, our progress toward goals.

For chief executives, prioritizing SEL is a strategic issue. Effective implementation of SEL policies starts with the school district developing a clear and compelling vision for SEL that defines tangible outcomes the organization is striving to achieve.

Details

Jan282019

Tell Your Story by Defining Success

Analytics, Strategic MonitoringBy John Gatta January 28, 2019

The ability to articulate and substantiate a compelling story of student success and school quality ultimately speaks to the return on investment that schools provide the communities they serve. School quality and student success are a matter of definition. For years, federal policy has controlled the definition of student success and school quality as predominately how students perform on state assessments. As educators, we know there are many additional outcomes that predict student success and align closer to the values of local communities. The story of local school districts is more comprehensive than what state report cards capture.

The state report card is only part of the story – unless the missing parts are never told. Absent the rest of the story, the incomplete story told via the state report cards becomes the full story. The idea is to provide communities the full story.

Details

Oct162018

The single most important pitfall for Illinois schools to avoid when interpreting ISBE Student Growth Percentiles (SGPs)

Analytics, IL-Empower, School ImprovementBy John Gatta October 16, 2018

The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) recently released student growth percentiles (SGPs) to Illinois school districts in preparation of the new school accountability system and the launch of the new Illinois school report card. While incorporating student growth into the school accountability system is a step in the right direction, it is important to recognize that ISBE SGP results are reported within an accountability context not a school improvement context.

Details

May312016

Leadership and Return on Investment

Analytics, Strategic MonitoringBy John Gatta May 31, 2016

SCHOOL DISTRICT LEADERS face challenges when they attempt to document the relationship between costs and quality. Return on investment analysis is motivated by the strategic intentions of school boards and leadership to increase quality and optimize resource allocation. No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top and state accountability laws have shaped a definition of…

Details