District leadership must set clear expectations around student data collection when working with educators, ensuring that teachers understand the purpose, processes, and goals of data-driven practices. To make data collection successful, district leadership should provide clear direction, practical tools, and dedicated time for educators to gather and analyze data effectively. By establishing transparent guidelines and providing ongoing support, district leaders can foster a productive, data-informed culture that enables teachers to make impactful instructional adjustments that drive meaningful improvements in student outcomes.

District administrators can empower educators to make informed adjustments that drive lasting improvements in student achievement and success by fostering a culture of data-driven decision-making and providing the necessary support.

District administrators should help educators recognize the various forms of data and their specific roles in the secondary classroom. Types of data that educators could pull from are:

• Formative assessment data provides real-time feedback for the teacher to adjust, adapt, or clarify their instruction quickly and efficiently in real-time, to meet the needs of their students. Formative assessment data can include quizzes, exit tickets, class discussions, and other informal assessments.
• Summative assessment data looks at a student's performance over some time. This could range from a unit to a semester or even include a year. Summative assessment data includes results from standardized tests, unit tests, or an end-of-unit essay that frequently does not lend itself to changes in instructional practice in an immediate way. This may inform long-range plans for further instruction, patterns over time, or perhaps adjustments in future assignments based on the summative findings.
• Behavioral data could be collected to gain insights into factors that affect student learning. This could include noting patterns or particular incidents of behavior and developing strategies to address challenges, focusing on engagement indicators such as attendance, participation, classroom behavior, and homework completion, all of which can influence academic outcomes.
• Self-reflection data provides an even clearer picture of how students perceive their own learning. Examples could include which subjects or skills that students feel confident in or skills where they feel they need additional support. This data provides valuable insights into students' self-awareness, motivation, and emotional connection to their progress. By encouraging self-reflection, teachers can gain a more complete picture of each student's learning journey, helping to inform tailored support, build a growth mindset, and promote student ownership of their learning.
• Progress Monitoring data provides teachers a clear view of a student’s growth over time, tracking mastery of specific skills or standards. This real-time insight allows teachers to adjust instruction as needed, apply targeted interventions, and ensure that all students remain on a path toward meeting their academic goals.

District leaders should encourage educators to focus on key metrics that drive student growth to prevent them from feeling overwhelmed by data. For instance, instead of tracking every individual assignment, administrators can guide teachers to focus on formative assessments and growth data, which reveal deeper trends in learning. Key areas to focus on might include specific standards or skills, like reading comprehension in English Language Arts or mastery of basic math facts in Algebra.

Encourage educators to be specific in the data they collect by having a goal or hypothesis. Educators should not be analyzing every single assignment from every single student; they don’t have time for that! Instead, having key focus areas and looking through the data through the lens of the focus area.

With so much data available, focusing on the metrics that matter most for student growth is key. For instance, instead of tracking every quiz score, consider monitoring trends in formative assessments, looking for gaps in understanding across specific standards or skills. Many teachers also find success by focusing on "growth data" rather than raw scores alone, which can provide a better picture of individual student progress. Another approach could be identifying specific standards and monitoring achievement against those skills.

For example: If the goal is to improve reading comprehension skills for students in a 9th-grade English class, focusing on data related to students' ability to decode unfamiliar words through phonics-based strategies, their use of context clues to determine word meanings, and their ability to summarize key ideas from texts would be beneficial in monitoring development.

Data becomes most effective when it's seamlessly integrated into daily instruction. District leaders can help teachers incorporate the following strategies:

• Differentiated Grouping: Use data to form dynamic student groups based on needs, tailoring tasks to reinforce or extend learning.
• Targeted Feedback: Encourage educators to provide immediate, actionable feedback based on formative assessments like exit tickets, helping students correct misconceptions in real time.
• Pacing Adjustments: Use data to adjust the pace of lessons—accelerating when students show mastery or adding review when gaps are identified.

Empowering students to track their own progress creates an ownership of their learning and promotes a growth mindset. District administrators can support their educators by encouraging them to help students set goals and reflect on their learning. Providing a professional development opportunity for grade-level groups or subject matter experts to gather and discuss the best practices for student-involved data tracking could be incredibly beneficial.

An example of involving students in tracking and monitoring their data is having them track quiz scores or class assignments related to a specific standard and using this data to set improvement goals for the next unit.

Data should be used to collaborate across grade levels, departments, or professional learning communities (PLCs). District administrators can integrate time for regular team meetings to review shared data, identify trends, and develop strategies to address common challenges. This collaborative method ensures that data-informed actions benefit specific groups of students.

For example, an educator could notice that her incoming sixth graders struggle to distinguish between metaphors and similes. This educator could bring their observations to the Grade 6 Language Arts educators during their data collaboration meeting and see if this is a trend in their classroom or if their colleagues notice the same things. If there is a trend in the whole grade, the educators can work together to provide support within the curriculum and monitor progress throughout the rest of the year.

District leaders can support data-driven instruction by providing access to digital tools that streamline the data collection and analysis processes. Really Great Reading offers a complimentary Diagnostic Decoding Survey that provide insight into the following questions:

• Which students are struggling with decoding?
• What types of words are they struggling with?
• What is the source of the underlying confusion?

Tools like the Diagnostic Decoding Survey help educators collect data more efficiently, automate feedback, and track student progress over time. These tools can also provide insights that allow teachers to respond more effectively to student needs.

Data serves as a powerful tool for promoting equity in education. By analyzing achievement gaps, attendance patterns, and disparities in student engagement, along with other factors, educators, and administrators can identify students needing additional support through academic interventions or social-emotional learning resources.

For example, suppose data reveals that English Learner students struggle with writing assessments. In that case, districts can provide additional targeted support, such as a curriculum that supports learning in their native language and English as a support that doesn’t just require the student to write more or get a tutor.

Check out Really Great Reading’s English Learner Resource Hub, which offers foundational skills for beginning English readers. It includes a phonics Scope and Sequence with EL recommendations, letter articulation videos, multilingual instructional animations, teaching materials like anchor charts and flashcards, and teacher resources such as Letter Tile Free Play and training.

For district administrators, embracing data isn't about adding another responsibility to their educator's workload. Instead, it is about enhancing instruction, fostering personalized learning, and promoting student success. With a data-driven approach, educators can be better equipped to meet the diverse needs of their students, engage every learner more effectively, and improve academic outcomes. Given the time, proper tools, strategies, and mindset, data can be a transformative asset for every educator.