The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2002 is breaking new ground by requiring the collection of data that describes school effectiveness through measurements of student progress and staff effectiveness. This Act outlines four basic education reform principles: stronger accountability for results, increased flexibility and local control, expanded options for parents, and an emphasis on teaching methods that have been proven to work. The data points necessary to make these determinations come from across the pre-school through twelfth grade enterprise including student enrollment by socio-economic status, student performance on standardized tests disaggregated by race and ethnicity, class schedules, and staff qualifications and teaching assignments.
In many school systems across the state of Oklahoma, most of this data is maintained in a variety of unconnected software applications. The required data import/export task is time-consuming and costly. These applications are often purchased by different departments within a school or district, resulting in data ‘silos’ that mirror the school and district organizational structure. The impact of NCLB is that schools, districts, and states must draw their data out of these disparate applications in order to respond to the new requirements imposed by NCLB's ‘horizontal questions’ which cut across the software and organizational silos.
EPS has recognized advancements in real-time technology that will provide the district an opportunity through ZIS architecture to systematically account for individual and group academic and performance skills. It is the intent of this district to demonstrate within this application a model for accomplishing the accountability questions derived from House Bill 1021, Student Tracking and Reporting. The STAR pilot program will support the necessary management of performance outcomes and district reporting methods through the use of synchronization of data across various third-party applications currently in operation in the district. The district’s Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) will assist in managing the following applications: (1) real-time reporting of curriculum expectations, (2) monitoring student performances in key content areas, (3) analyzing student subgroups’ performances, (4) implementing electronic grading and real-time assessment viewers, (5) tracking attendance rates of individual students, (6) reporting student suspensions, (7) tracking individual educational plans, and (8) developing e-portfolios for individual students across grades eight through twelve. Through the use of Open Standards and web-based applications, EPS will transform their information technology from a collection of stand-alone silos of information to an integrated information systems platform that will enable world-class educational experiences spelled out under the NCLB Act.
EPS has recognized advancements in real-time technology that will provide the district an opportunity through ZIS architecture to systematically account for individual and group academic and performance skills. It is the intent of this district to demonstrate within this application a model for accomplishing the accountability questions derived from House Bill 1021, Student Tracking and Reporting. The STAR pilot program will support the necessary management of performance outcomes and district reporting methods through the use of synchronization of data across various third-party applications currently in operation in the district. The district’s Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) will assist in managing the following applications: (1) real-time reporting of curriculum expectations, (2) monitoring student performances in key content areas, (3) analyzing student subgroups’ performances, (4) implementing electronic grading and real-time assessment viewers, (5) tracking attendance rates of individual students, (6) reporting student suspensions, (7) tracking individual educational plans, and (8) developing e-portfolios for individual students across grades eight through twelve. Through the use of Open Standards and web-based applications, EPS will transform their information technology from a collection of stand-alone silos of information to an integrated information systems platform that will enable world-class educational experiences spelled out under the NCLB Act. 