Friday, November 9, 2001

Initiative aimed at education
By Melissa DeLoach
Skiff Staff

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A group of educators, business executives and policy makers announced a plan Thursday to use research data to help improve academic performance in the nation’s public schools.

By creating The National Center for Educational Accountability, they said they hoped to provide a model for public school improvement by using a data management system to identify classroom success and cutting-edge educational resources to improve schools.

“I don’t think effective teaching can exist absent this kind of great data,” said Education Secretary Rod Paige. “For folks who use accountability and know how it works, it’s a new way of doing business across our nation, a new day in education and a good day where there’s a lot of progress.”

The National Center for Educational Accountability, which will be located at the University of Texas, is modeled after the Austin-based ‘Just for Kids,’ a non-profit organization that uses accountability data to examine and improve school performance. The new center is a joint partnership formed by ‘Just for Kids,’ the University of Texas at Austin and the Education Commission for the States.

“What we do is highlight success stories in all of our public schools with every kind of child and every type of learning condition,” said Tom Luce, who heads Just for Kids and will chair the new organization. “With our data we are able to find the most successful schools and research their best practices.”

Paige said the initiative will provide parents and communities with information they need to make a critical judgment about their schools and education of their students.

“There is no more powerful engine for change than parents who have this kind of information and have some alternatives,” he said.

The initiative will provide public data that will help to ensure fair comparisons between schools of the same characteristics, Paige said.

Melissa DeLoach
m.d.deloach@student.tcu.edu