This report is the second in a three-part research effort to investigate the prevalence of performance-driven practices in urban school districts across the country. The first study, “Anatomy of School System Improvement: Performance-Driven Practices in Urban School Districts,” analyzed the state of performance-driven practices within 28 leading school districts.
This second year of research has been conducted with the support of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and in partnership with the Center on Educational Governance at the University of Southern California. The study captures the details of data-driven instructional decision making at the classroom, school, and system levels in two urban school districts and two nonprofit charter management organizations.
In doing so, the researchers document effective performance-driven practices, identify salient themes regarding the structure and culture of the systems, examine needs for improvement, and make recommendations for policy and practice.