Central office data-driven decision making in public education

Data-driven decision making has become part of the lexicon for educational reform efforts. Supported by the federal No Child Left Behind legislation, the use of data to inform educational decisions has become a common-place practice across the country. Using an online survey administered to central office data leaders in all Virginia public school districts, this study sought to determine to what extent school districts in Virginia have the capacity to make data-driven decisions, whether demographic factors such as district size and wealth are related to the level of data-driven decision making capacity, and which leadership practices enable or constrain district office personnel's contributions to data-driven decision making efforts.;Division Directors of Testing and Student Information System contacts overwhelmingly think that their districts have the core components of a culture of quality data in place, and that educators in their districts use a variety of data in collaborative efforts to improve student instruction. District size and wealth are not significantly related to how these central office data leaders evaluate their district's data-driven decision making capacity. The presence of exemplary data use practices is related to a system of practice rather than discrete leadership tasks, suggesting that successful data-driven decision making efforts benefit from comprehensive efforts using distributed expertise. These themes are analyzed quantitatively in this study. Recommendations for practice and future research are also presented.