Databus Issue: 2007 3 09/17/2007
A Success Story: Poway’s “TIM”
Charlie Garten Total Information Management
PDF
Eight years ago when Ray Wilson, the
new director of assessment entered
my office with an eight-inch thick,
three-ring binder under his arm, I said,
“Nice doorstop.” Ray looked at me and
replied, “That’s the problem.” He went
on to explain that each principal would
receive a similar binder full of data on
the assessment results of their students.
No one had time to look at, let alone use
the data to improve instruction. Ray then
lamented the oft-used expression, “We’re
data rich and information poor.” We
sat down and discussed the issues facing
teachers, parents and administrators who
wanted to easily retrieve reports or easily
create ad hoc reports to help student
achievement in the Poway Unified School
District. To us, the solution seemed to
lie in uniting the technology and assessment
departments so that my technology
department staff could research products
that were available and addressed Ray’s
needs, but which fit with invested funds
that we had already expended. Ray would
mobilize the assessment and curriculum
staff with the school. They would determine
how priorities would dictate the
order in which we tackled the projects
before us. Neither Ray, I or our staffs had
any idea of the magnitude of the realm
into which we were about to enter.
As I formed my part of the team and
we started our endeavor, the hurdles we
needed to overcome began to be apparent.
We would have to look outside the
educational sources for solutions. We
met with an internationally-known data
warehousing company. They had no K-12
experience; we had no data warehousing
experience. Vocabulary became a deterrent
to our progress, as words that we
used meant something different in their
jargon. Misunderstandings between the
educational and corporate worlds almost
derailed us. Fortunately, the warehousing
company had one employee who had
worked in education and she provided
the points of reference that both sides
so desperately needed about the other.
She would be our “translator.” Finally,
we were all on the same page and now
the real work would begin. Meanwhile,
Ray and Stacey Campo, a trainer from
my department, had formed the district technology
assessment committee. My
staff was attending these twice-monthly
meetings, along with school administrators
and teachers in an effort to prioritize
the plan for our project. This group had a
vague idea of what they wanted, but had
trouble expressing it. To support them, we
decided to break the project into phases,
knowing that after every phase people
using it would have a deeper understanding
of what was needed and would better
be able to express that. We could make
needed adjustments as we went through
the phases.
The technology department was facing
challenges of unclean data and lack
of substantial data storage. Tracy Jones
accepted this challenge and went into
each of the databases cleaning up the
obvious cases of dirty data. He knew the
data-warehousing company, if we went
with it, would have a data-scrubbing tool
and would provide a better picture of the
further work needed. The first phase was
about to come together and we needed to
create bid specifications for the request for
proposal.
Three companies responded when we
went out for bid. It was decided to set up
a mock database and see which of the
companies best created a tool to deliver
the help we needed. The first day, one of
the companies took a look at the specifications
that they had bid for and declined
the job. The second company dropped out
after one frustrating week. The third company,
SASinstitute, produced a running
version within two weeks, demonstrating
that they could create what we needed.
Key team members from Poway Unified
School District and key project leaders
from SAS sat down and constructed a
data dictionary for the first phase of the
project. An open-ended dictionary, more
information could be added as the project
went on. We made sure that the interface
that the teachers would be using would
have canned (non-manipulatable) reports
as well as ad hoc reporting capabilities.
This created a wide range of capabilities,
from just viewing reports, to creation of
users’ own charts, drilling down through
selected groups of students to an individual.
The data that was available included
three years of Northwest Evaluation Association
benchmarking assessments, district
and state tests, all information available in
the student information system and more.
As soon as the first phase was tested, up
and running, we began to train our teachers.
We were amazed at how the majority
was not only interested, but enthusiastically
questioned further potential uses.
Teacher and administrator training took
about one year. The district’s schools
started a cultural change, using data to
make informed decisions even before the
entire training was completed. Teachers
and administrators had realized an entirely
new potential for the use of data. Sixthgrade
counselors use “TIM” to analyze
the data of the incoming fifth-grade students
to place them in their best individual
learning environment. Science and math
teachers discovered that their students had
reading problems that were holding them
back in these other classes. They created
special supplemental materials, enabling
students to better learn math and science.
By going into “TIM” and observing these
students’ test results, they could determine
that the base problem was reading, not the
ability to perform math or science functions.
When hiring new teachers for the
district, administrators reviewed the class
counts and teacher counts made available
through “TIM.” This informed decision
making resulted in hiring seven fewer
teachers than originally were thought
needed from less informed projections.
“TIM” now is in its third phase. This
phase introduces the financial data bases
to the data warehouse. Data from across
all areas are being used to make return
on investment and true cost of ownership
decisions. Purchases are not made on “feelings,”
but on “does it help students?” and
“are we using our money wisely?” There
is now six years assessment data available.
New teachers are introduced to “TIM”
through special new teacher training sessions.
What have we learned through this
massive project? It is very important
to establish a good partner relationship
with a company experienced in this field.
The district and the partner must have
enthusiastic project managers who work
well together. If you build a good tool for
teachers, then train them, they will use it.
The old adage, “garbage in, garbage out”
is truer today than ever before; get your
data clean! Use tools to keep data clean.
Users often know what they want when
they see it and they know what they don’t
want after they’ve used it. Once you’ve
started down this path, it will grow:
• Storage needs will grow.
• Security needs will grow
• Data and power backup needs will grow
Don’t paint yourself into a corner – plan
ahead!
Using data to make informed decisions
does help in the student learning
process. An example to be observed is
Los Penasquitos Elementary School in the
Poway Unified School District. A title one
school that was scoring in the 600’s on
AYP and now is 910 and higher, thanks
to the implementation of data systems like
“TIM” as part of their concerted effort
for improvement.
Data warehousing might have originated
as a business solution, but it can be
used successfully as a multi-faceted education
solution, and Poway Unified School
District believes this success story was
worth all the work.
