First national academic performance database was developed to address the lack of information about the US education system and academic performance. It is the first comprehensive national database of academic performance that can break the data into gender, race, social-economic conditions and opportunities available to a given school
Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University has released an interactive data tool that will provide valuable information about school performances across schools and districts. This tool will dive into fine details of major issues that influence education performances in schools. It will be easily accessible and act as an information centre where other researchers can use the data to form informed decisions.
The project was directed by Stanford Professor Sean Reardon, Ed.M.’92, Ed.D.’97. The tools were developed by experts who consisted of HGSE Professor Andrew Ho as a principal researcher, along with Erin Fahle of St. John’s University School of Education and Benjamin Shear of the University of Colorado Boulder.
National academic performance database address lack of information
Before 2016, it was almost impossible to determine how the schools nationally are performing. It was not possible to dive into academic data subsets based on race, gender, economic status of the school and sort them by districts and performances. Decisions while implementing education policy to improve performance, were not data-driven and prone to error. This incomplete data always gives incomplete information about various aspects of school performances.
Stanford Education Data Archive (SEDA) was developed to address the lack of information about the US education system. It is the first comprehensive national database of academic performance that can break the data into gender, race, social-economic conditions and opportunities available to a given school. The first SEDA database contained over 350 million reading and test scores that had been collected from 2008 to 2016 which were first published in 2016. The database has always been updated and contains up-to-date information about the academic performances of schools.
The site is providing data based on three educational opportunities measures. This include:
- Average test scores that is tracking all the educational opportunities available to children from birth to middle school.
- Learning rates which is determining the educational opportunities available in a single year.
- Trends determining how educational scores are changing each year.
This database is expected to solve problems such as the best method to use when gauging the quality of schools, identifying the effects of segregation and policymakers are expected to use it for creating targeted policies to confront disparities. This is a revolutionary tool that will go a long way in solving some of our societal issues which are centered on education.
