Education Decision Support Systems Meeting

Sponsored by U.S. Department of Education’s Office of the Chief Information Officer

Council of Chief State School Officers
Doubletree Hotel at Post Oak, Houston, Texas
June 28-29, 2001

Presenter: Leigh Ann Grant-Engle, Data Manager

Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
Phone: (573) 522-8310 Fax: (573) 526-6898
lgranten@mail.dese.state.mo.us
http://www.dese.state.mo.us/

Background Information

General Facts About Missouri Schools (The Show-Me State)

• 880,000 students in public schools grades K-12
• 64,000 teachers
• 524 School Districts ( 2 large Urban Districts – Kansas City and St. Louis City)
o 73 Elementary only districts (K-8)

• Missouri has a State Board of Education (members appointed by the Governor), with a
Commissioner of Education. Each district has a local school board that manages the district.

• Missouri does NOT have a statewide student information system. Each district chooses their own
method of managing student records.

• Missouri does NOT have a State mandated curriculum.

• In 1996 Missouri passed legislation that included a new Standards Based Assessment System –
which focuses on the Missouri Show-Me Standards and Curriculum Frameworks.

• The Missouri School Improvement Program manages the accreditation program. Each district is
reviewed once every 5 years. The measures include resources, processes and performance. The
Assessment system makes up the majority of the performance points. -- High stakes
accountability system that includes the performance of ALL kids.

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Presenter Leigh Ann Grant-Engle, Data Manager Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
Decision Support System
The department had one time money to purchase a software tool that would help school districts analyze
the assessment results.

Considerations in choosing the tool:

• It was on the state’s Prime Vendor Contract

• The price was reasonable ($291 per copy)

• The flexibility in the use of various databases

• The flexibility in report designs, and layouts

• Ease of use by the end user (pre-made reports)

• The opportunity to help organize the data in a useable format and continue a dialogue with the
districts on how to use that data.

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Presenter Leigh Ann Grant-Engle, Data Manager Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
Technical Infrastructure

• Data collected via a paper form, scanned and provided to the department in a fixed record length
text file.

• The data is loaded on our RS6000 machine into Oracle Databases

o The data is stored at a raw level in the original format that it is received.
o Aggregate data to a building, district and state level are then stored in tables

• A series of scripts are written to output the data into text files. There is a total of 15 tables needed
for each school district. The record layout is predetermined for later use with the software tool.

• The text files are FTP’d to a local NT server. A VB Script is written to read each text file and
place it into a Microsoft Access Database file (*.mdb). When this process is completed there are
525 district level files named with a fixed preface and district code identifier. (example
MAP_001090.mdb)

• A CD is created for each district containing:

o A Report Folder (series of pre-made reports)
o That administrative year of data
o The Manual
o Additional upgrades as needed (for example ODBC driver 32)

• Clear Access (a product of Computer Associates) is a relational database tool that is machine
licensed and installed on the local hard drive. The software can be installed on a network, but can
only be used by one individual at a time. The tool can access and use the following database
structures through an ODBC connection – Visual FoxPro Database, Visual FoxPro Tables, dBase
Files – Word, FoxPro Files – Word, MS Access Database, dBase Files, Excel Files.

• It will run on a MAC, but is more complicated and does not support the same features that the PC
version will support.

• The user must do an ODBC set-up process to have the software link to the data source (in this case
the CDROM Drive). This process was chosen for our specific needs.

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Presenter Leigh Ann Grant-Engle, Data Manager Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
 ClearAccess Architecture

REPORT
QUERY WRITER

QUERY
RESULTS
DESKTOP
APPLICATIONS

E.G. EXCEL
MS WORD

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Presenter Leigh Ann Grant-Engle, Data Manager Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
CLEAR ACCESS – Demonstration

Clear Access Demonstration

Administrative Uses
Reporting and Planning Uses
Instructional Uses

 Click one time on Run

 Double Click on Map_2000_Reports

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Presenter Leigh Ann Grant-Engle, Data Manager Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
 Highlight the report and click on Open.

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Presenter Leigh Ann Grant-Engle, Data Manager Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
Report Number 1: Achievement Level Report
 Identify the grade levels and subjects with a high percentage of students in the
lower two levels.
 Is the district having trouble at the elementary, middle or high school?
Identify a subject and grade level to follow through each of the additional reports.

Email Report Exit Report Zoom In on the report

Exit Report

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Presenter Leigh Ann Grant-Engle, Data Manager Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
Report Number 2: Content_Standards_School
 Review each standard to see if the district has improved from last year?
 Is the district doing any better or any worse than the state on a given standard?
 If the district has multiple buildings, is a building doing any better or worse on a
particular standard?
 How many objectives does the district have for that standard up through to the
grade level being reviewed?

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Presenter Leigh Ann Grant-Engle, Data Manager Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
Report Number 3: Content_Item_Analysis ?? (??=Subject CA, Math, Sci, SS)
 Review the Standards of concern from the Content_Standard_School Report.
 What content is being assess?
 What types of questions are being used to assess the content?

 Drill Down

 Quick Select

 Re - Sort

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Presenter Leigh Ann Grant-Engle, Data Manager Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
 Click on the Print Preview to be Type of Question
able to email the report to MC = Multiple Choice
someone. CR = Constructed Response
PE = Performance Event
Number of points possible for
that particular item.

Average number of points the

student’s got right for that
item.

By holding the mouse on top of

any item. A full description will
display.
Show-Me Show-Me
Standard Standard
Number Description

Session Number
(Session 1, 2 or 3, Session 3 is CTB TerraNova)

Item Number (Number of the item on the test)

Description (From the Annotated Frameworks or Test

Specifications)

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Presenter Leigh Ann Grant-Engle, Data Manager Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
 Drilling Down Within the Report Place the mouse on top of the district
name. Right click on the mouse. The
option to “Drill Down” will appear.
Drill down to additional schools,
classrooms, or students.

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Presenter Leigh Ann Grant-Engle, Data Manager Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
 Quick Select on a Group or Standard
After “drilling down” to a subgroup there will be
the option to do a “Quick Select”. This will allow
a user to display ONLY that particular sub-group
for printing.

Place the mouse on top of the sub group to be

included. Right click on the mouse button and
scroll down to Quick Select.

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Presenter Leigh Ann Grant-Engle, Data Manager Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
 Sorting of the Report

The sort order of the report is determined by the column on the far left
hand side of the report. This report is currently sorted by Standard,
Question Type, and the Session and Item Number.

To sort the report by question type, place the mouse on top of the QT and
click on the LEFT mouse button. Hold the button down and drag the
column to the far left hand side of the page.

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Presenter Leigh Ann Grant-Engle, Data Manager Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
Additional Comments and Thoughts

Positives

• Software tool can export and import a variety of data formats.

• Data organized in a standard format so additional reports can be generated centrally and provided via a web site.

• Districts have been very pleased with their ability to access and use the data.

On-going Issues
Cleansing of the data
Changes in the software company
Training on the tool (district turnover)
Training on how to use the data
Other vendors using the data with their tools.
Common Student ID
Student Confidentiality issues – requests for the data.
The Volume of data – storage, indexing, backups etc…

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Presenter Leigh Ann Grant-Engle, Data Manager Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education