Making Sense of Data-Driven Decision Making in Education

Drawing on RAND research, this paper examines data-driven decision making (DDDM) policies and practices, clarifies how data are being used in schools and districts, identifies factors that support or hinder DDDM, and suggests future research in the field. A few implications are that schools and teachers need support to implement effective DDDM and that utilizing multiple data types collected at multiple time points can improve decision making.