Strategic StudentThe Data Guide
Trusted answers on every major topic in K-12 education data. Look up a term, get a clear definition, see the right chart for it, and know what it means for your district, your school, or your student.
Every topic, one trusted page each
Attendance and Absenteeism
The loudest early-warning signal schools own. Two absences a month puts a student on pace for chronic absence, and a school can post 93% average attendance while a quarter of its students are chronically absent. Averages hide the story; this topic teaches you to see it.
Growth and Achievement
A student can grow all year and still drop in percentile. Achievement says where a student stands. Growth says which way they're headed and how fast. Most score-report confusion comes from mixing the two questions, and this topic untangles them for good.
Assessment Literacy
A cut score is a human decision, and every score is an estimate. Three kinds of tests do three different jobs, and a point on either side of the line is nearly the same student. Read tests by their job and their error band and half the arguments in a data meeting disappear.
Graduation and the Pathway
You can't move a graduation rate in 12th grade. You move it in 9th. The diploma is a lagging indicator; credits and core courses are the leading ones. This topic covers the official rate math and the checkpoints along the way, where the trouble is still recoverable.
MTSS and Interventions
MTSS is a promise about how fast help arrives. Tiers describe the help, never the student. Screening finds the need, progress monitoring puts the intervention on trial, and decision rules tell you when to stay the course or change it. The data's whole job is speed.
Behavior and School Climate
One suspension roughly doubles a student's dropout risk. Behavior data describes the interaction between students and systems, and the risk ratio asks the question that matters most: are consequences landing fairly? Every removal is an early-warning event, not just a consequence.
Equity and Subgroups
A gap is a question about systems, never a verdict on a group of students. Disaggregation is the most important habit in education data, and reading gaps well is a skill: n-sizes, suppression, opportunity next to outcome, and the charts that lie versus the ones that don't.
College and Career Readiness
Readiness is built in course choices years before any test. Benchmarks, dual credit, FAFSA completion, CTE pathways: the numbers that describe what a graduate can walk into next, and how to open those doors early instead of sorting seniors late.
Early Literacy
Reading trouble caught in kindergarten is a hurdle. Caught in fourth grade it is a wall. Universal screeners, oral reading fluency, and the K-3 numbers that predict nearly everything after, plus what to do in the weeks after the screen instead of the years.
English Learners
The EL subgroup is designed to look like it's struggling, because every student who succeeds leaves it. WIDA levels, reclassification, long-term ELs, and the ever-EL lens that tells the truth about a program. Multilingualism is the asset; the data just needs a careful read.
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