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Students & Educators

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Students & Educators

Jennifer BellMarch 25, 2014 0

"March madness" of student course enrollment gets assist from value-added assessment

As teachers head into the madness of student course registration, the madness of college basketball reinforces a critical point: Data is crucial to making the picks that lead to a winning bracket, and student growth. Value-added assessment has proven reliable in determining which students are ready for their "one shining moment". This

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Education | Government

Advanced Analytics | SAS Events | Students & Educators

Polly Mitchell-GuthrieFebruary 7, 2014 0

Skills needed for competitive advantage in analytics (hint, it's not just the math)

I'm a big believer in both/and thinking, so I'll stand squarely in the middle and say that the most important skills for competitive advantage in analytics include a combination of top-notch modeling abilities along with business acumen, critical thinking, and curiosity. I was intrigued by a blog post on this

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Students & Educators

Nadja YoungJanuary 28, 2014 0

Student growth measures can be the bridge to new assessments

As I embark on 2014, I reflect upon the many competing, yet interdependent, tensions discussed in education circles in 2013. In conferences, classrooms and statehouses, adults who care about kids debated the best ways to implement: New academic standards (Common Core State Standards or other College and Career Ready Standards)

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Education | Government

Analytics | Students & Educators

Jennifer BellNovember 20, 2013 0

Bold efforts, hard work pay off for Tennessee education, and my daughter

With the others, I filed into the school gymnasium, my super zoom camera lens at the ready and a nervous smile on my face. Across the room, I caught a glimpse of my unsmiling daughter, and my apprehension grew about how this awards day program would play out for her.

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Education | Government

Advanced Analytics | SAS Events | Students & Educators

Jerry OglesbyOctober 18, 2013 0

ANALYTICS 2013 – A BEST PRACTICE CONFERENCE FOR ANALYTICS PROFESSIONALS

We are in the final countdown to the Analytics 2013 Conference to be held next week, October 21-22 at the Hyatt Regency Orlando. There is a power-packed agenda for the conference, featuring four very strong keynote presentations from Dr. Jim Goodnight, CEO of SAS; Ed Gaffin, Walt Disney World; Will Hakes,

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Students & Educators

Jennifer BellSeptember 12, 2013 0

Building your teaching playbook

Like many of you teachers out there, I spent a lot of time recently preparing for the new school year. At home, it began with the therapeutic organization of children's rooms. As I sat amid in outgrown clothes, last year’s school work, and books to donate, I braced myself and

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Education | Government

Students & Educators

Nadja YoungAugust 12, 2013 0

Beyond value-added: Teachers need diagnostic data to improve their practice

As student growth or value-added measures become more prevalent in educator evaluation systems, many question how those ratings actually help teachers improve their practice. i.e. “How does a level 3 teacher become a level 4 or 5?” Robust and reliable value-added data serve as a great starting point for teachers

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Education | Government

Students & Educators

Nadja YoungMay 17, 2013 0

Value-added myth busting, Part 4: Value-added models cannot measure growth of students who have missing data or are highly mobile

Students with missing test scores are often highly mobile students and are more likely to be low-achieving students. It is important to include these students in any growth/value-added model to avoid selection bias, which could provide misleading growth estimates to districts, schools and teachers that serve higher populations of these

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Education | Government

Students & Educators

Nadja YoungApril 15, 2013 0

Busting myths of education value-added analysis, Part 3: Simple growth measures provide better information to educators.

Welcome to Part 3 of the value-added Myth Busters blog series. I have heard a variation of this many times. “Why shouldn’t educators just use a simple gains approach or a pre- and post-test? They can trust simpler methodologies because they can replicate and understand them more easily.” Simple growth measures

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Education | Government

Students & Educators | Work & Life at SAS

Willie and Ed on an airplane

Willie the Seeing Eye DogApril 1, 2013 0

Teaching the teachers

I love to travel, especially by air. As is my due, I get plenty of attention. Airlines assign the blind guy to a row with extra leg room, so that I can stretch my big self out and enjoy the ride. While in route, airports give me a special place

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Students & Educators

Nadja YoungMarch 27, 2013 0

Busting myths of education value-added analysis, Part 2: It is harder to show growth with high-achieving students

Welcome to Part 2 of the value-added Myth Busters blog series…have you heard this one before? Educators serving high-achieving students are often concerned that their students’ entering achievement level makes it more difficult for them to show growth. “How can my students show growth if they are already earning high

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Education | Government

Students & Educators

Nadja YoungMarch 13, 2013 0

Busting myths of education value-added analysis, Part 1: You must control for demographics

In the past five years, value-added models have been increasingly adopted by states to support various teaching effectiveness policies. As educators make the paradigm shift from looking at only achievement data to incorporating growth data, many misconceptions have developed. Compounding this issue is the fact that not all value-added and

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Education | Government

Students & Educators

Nadja YoungNovember 16, 2012 0

Data-driven education books make great holiday gifts for educators. Yes, really.

As the holidays approach, we’ll all have some down-time to catch up on personal and professional reading, hopefully cozied up by a fire with a cup of hot chocolate in hand. While most books regarding data-driven decision making and value-added analyses can be pretty heavy, I’d like to suggest two

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Education | Government

Advanced Analytics | Learn SAS | Students & Educators

November 12, 2012 0

How to Hire a Chief Data Scientist

How do you hire a Chief Data Scientist? That's not a hypothetical question: I know of at least three companies that are actively looking for a "Chief Data Scientist" at the moment. Hiring the right person is harder than you'd think. Whether or not a Chief Data Scientist is a

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Analytics | Students & Educators

Nadja YoungOctober 31, 2012 0

Education reform in Houston: Together we can. Whatever it takes. No excuses.

K-12 education reform and policy has seen a recent surge in the cinema with "Waiting for Superman," "The Lottery," and this fall’s "Won't Back Down.” However, if you can’t bring yourself to spend $9.00+ at the box office, or (like me) have a hard time finding babysitters to even get

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Education | Government

Students & Educators

Nadja YoungSeptember 25, 2012 0

Transitioning value-added and growth models to new assessments

This summer’s education conferences have been dominated by sessions discussing the “next generation,” Common Core aligned assessments in English and mathematics. As 44 states plan for the transition from their state tests to the new PARCC and Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium assessments, SAS has received repeated questions from our partners

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Education | Government

Students & Educators

Nadja YoungAugust 27, 2012 0

Semantics of student growth, test score discussions create anxiety amongst educators

“Ohio links teacher pay to test scores” was the headline of a recent CNN School of Thought blog. Yikes! With a headline like that, teachers might start heading for the hills. I kept reading through the blog hoping that it would better explain Ohio’s policy to use student growth data

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Education | Government

Students & Educators

Nadja YoungJune 27, 2012 0

NC teachers’ voices regarding use of student growth in educator evaluations

In 2011-2012, North Carolina became one of many states to restructure their educator evaluation system to incorporate student growth. The NC Department of Public Instruction commissioned the external expertise of WestEd to evaluate various growth models and recommend value-added technology that would help them best meet their mission of using meaningful evaluation to

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Education | Government

Students & Educators

Nadja YoungMay 31, 2012 0

Communicating value-added results through community engagement and partnership

In the summer of 2010, the LA Times made national waves by publishing Los Angeles Unified School District’s teacher names and value-added estimates. The New York Times followed suit in February, 2012, ranking New York City’s teachers based on their value-added ratings. While these bold actions may satisfy some parents

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Education | Government

Students & Educators

Nadja YoungMay 8, 2012 0

Value-added data informing and improving TN Schools of Education

With the rapid changes in our education systems regarding new standards, assessments, accountability and evaluation, teachers are rightfully feeling the pressure of being underprepared. The majority of teachers were not trained or certified with these rigorous systems in place. Recognizing that higher education institutions need to play an active role

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Education | Government

Students & Educators

Nadja YoungMarch 30, 2012 0

More than “teaching to the test”: Value-added ROI persists throughout a student’s life

A 23-year Harvard and Columbia University study was recently published shedding new light on the long-term impacts of teachers with both high and low value-added estimates. Researchers Chetty, Friedman, and Rockoff tracked math and reading assessment data on over 2.5 million students from 1989-2009. They then incorporated 90% of these

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Education | Government

Students & Educators

Nadja YoungFebruary 20, 2012 0

SAS Curriculum Pathways and the path to Common Core success

Teachers have more than enough to juggle each day, lacking the time to search for, and find, high-quality curricular resources online. When I would search for lesson plan supplements, I would often get lost in Google's abyss of results, spending far too much precious time sifting through mediocre materials. Until

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Education | Government

Analytics | Students & Educators

Nadja YoungJanuary 12, 2012 0

The art and science of seating charts

A’s in the front, Z’s in the back. How many of us grew up sitting in alphabetical order next to the same few classmates throughout school? While this is a quick and efficient way to learn student names, which is no easy task, it is not the most effective way

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Education | Government

Fraud & Security Intelligence | Students & Educators

Paula Henderson

Paula HendersonDecember 21, 2011 0

2011: The more things change...

2011 saw incredible change in the states as more than half of the governorships changed hands. As expected, that caused significant turnover at the State CIO level, as well. So while executive and technology policies changed in many ways, the dismal budget situation reinforced the need to allocate tax pay

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Education | Government

Students & Educators

Maslow's hierarchy of needs

Nadja YoungDecember 15, 2011 0

Poor does not equal lazy

After my November blog post about achievement gaps between affluent and poor students, Newt Gingrich cast some renewed energy on the topic with his inflammatory comments about poor children at a Dec 1st GOP debate. In case you missed his remarks, here is the quote that sent the media into

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Education | Government

Students & Educators

Nadja YoungNovember 17, 2011 0

Giving thanks for good teachers, closing the achievement gap

I recently attended The Education Trust’s 2011 National Conference on closing gaps and raising achievement for ALL students. This was my first Ed Trust event and I walked away baffled by the data about the inequities in our education system, and the persistent gaps between the affluent and impoverished. First,

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Education | Government

Students & Educators

Nadja YoungOctober 20, 2011 0

Student achievement's trick masks student growth's treat

Halloween is around the corner and children everywhere will wear masks throughout their neighborhoods for a night of trick-or-treating fun and, likely, too much candy. A masking has also occurred in education policy with the No Child Left Behind Act, sans the candy at the end of the night. That

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Education | Government

Students & Educators

Nadja YoungOctober 6, 2011 0

Part 3 of the 3 R’s of Education: Relationships that Raise Learning

With an increasing volume of curriculum to cover and no time to spare, teachers often hit the ground running with the full throttle rigor and relevance critical to teaching and learning. However, I argue that the first two R’s are futile if teachers don’t have meaningful relationships with their students.

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Education | Government

Students & Educators

Julie PetlickSeptember 21, 2011 0

Helping students get the most out of attending their first SAS Users Group Conference

Student’s schedules are packed with activities these days but taking time out to attend a conference is always a great addition to any semester. For students who use SAS and want to attend a SAS Users Group conference, here are some tips to help you get the most out of

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Students & Educators

Nadja YoungSeptember 15, 2011 0

Part 2 of the 3 R’s of Education: Real World Relevance

As schools across the country delve into a new year, I want to bring my readers back to teaching basics with Part 2 of my Three R’s series on Rigor, Relevance, and Relationships. Here's Part 1. As students flood our halls and classrooms, are they eager and excited for the challenging year ahead? Do

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Education | Government

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