26 Feb Using Business Intelligence To Change Student Lives
What happens when you blend BI with the Three Rs? In the case of the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools, you get a steady improvement in student results and national recognition that something good is going on.
According to the Data Quality Campaign (DQC), the Nashville school district has improved student outcomes by analyzing the data generated in normal classroom activities. DQC is a nonprofit organization that “supports state policymakers and other key leaders to promote the effective use of data to improve student achievement.”
Laura Hansen, director of information management and decision support for the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools, told InformationWeek that the benefits started showing up in real terms when many different data sources were brought together in a data warehouse that became the source for analysis.
What kind of benefits? In a telephone interview, Margie Johnson, business intelligence coordinator for the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools, told InformationWeek that measured benefits include:
• Increased graduation rate (decreased dropout rate)
• The data warehouse has an early warning system built into it to help identify at-risk students. The number of at-risk students has decreased over the years.
• Increased attendance rates. Decreased chronic absence rate.
• Decreased discipline incidents.
• Schools using the data-informed approach see increases in student achievement.