Strategic Data Project Convening 2025

Chronic absenteeism undermines academic success and equity. This session highlights three underappreciated findings that have implications for student success and equity: (1) every absence impacts performance, especially early ones; (2) interventions targeting students with fewer absences (<10%) may yield higher returns, as they constitute most absences; (3) effective interventions are crucial year-round, not just in September, due to increasing absences over time. Data from a custom survey and 1.5 million students underpins these actionable insights.

This session explores how schools and districts can elevate student voices in their use of school climate data to inform policies and practices. Researchers will share lessons from a California case study of three middle schools that employ innovative approaches to engaging with school climate data. Practitioners from one of the case study sites will then detail strategies for integrating student perception data and actively involving students in school and district decision-making processes.

Recent advancements in technology mean there are more early learning assessment tools than ever before, but it can be challenging to know how to select measures that will produce useful, reliable insights into the abilities of all children. This interactive session will critically examine recent innovations in early learning assessment, equipping participants with a lens to reflect on their own practices. Anyone interested in measuring the skills of young children is welcome to attend.

In this session, we will delve into how the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) identified second-year persistence as a challenge for LA College Promise students through extensive data analysis. We will discuss the development of a new enhanced coaching initiative aimed at addressing this issue, which will be piloted with first-year students and evaluated in partnership with CEPR researchers. Attendees will gain valuable insights into the importance of implementation assessment, with practical applications for educators, research-practice partnerships, and effective program evaluation.

This session will explore the question: How can we strengthen college advising capacity in our schools? Drawing on two large-scale surveys administered to district and school leaders, school counselors, and college advisors in Texas and state administrative data, the session will present new evidence regarding ways to measure the advising capacities of educators, schools, and districts and how enabling conditions of effective advising systems relate to educator outcomes such as wellbeing, burnout, and retention intentions.

Instructional coaching is an impactful form of teacher professional learning, with evidence that it improves both teaching and learning. However, coaching is labor-intensive, limiting the number of teachers a coach can serve. In this session, participants will learn about advancements in automated feedback that can increase the efficiency and reach of coaching. Participants will decompose a demonstration of teacher coaching that incorporates automated feedback and hear from district partners involved in the research-to-practice partnership.