Data-Based Decision Making:  The Achilles’ Heel of Evidence-based Education

The fourth Annual Summit on Evidence-based Education was held on April 23, 2009 at the Berkeley City Club in Berkeley California. Its purpose was to bring together leaders from a wide range of professions and organizations to identify the obstacles to, and opportunities for, promoting evidence-based decision making in special education.

Each Summit is designed to be a working session with representatives from various disciplines, service and research areas as well as consumers. Participants are asked to review certain resource materials prior to the Summit and complete a survey about evidence-based education in their area of interest. They received materials from the presentations, a copy of the Summit Report, and ongoing membership in the Wing Institute Knowledge Network.

Our first three Summits were a tremendous success, with participants representing 49 different organizations across 18 different professions. The presentations and proceedings from these Summits are available at our web site: www.winginstitute.org.

The theme of the 2009 Summit was: Data-based Decision Making: The Achilles Heel of Evidence-based Education. The success of evidence-based education hinges on effective performance monitoring and accurate data-based decision making at all levels (student, staff and system); including identifying the most critical data to collect, addressing technical and staff performance issues when collecting data, and decision making models that address the complexities of environments of imperfect evidence and avoiding common sources of error.

The Wing Institute has brought together three individuals whose professional accomplishments have significantly advanced our knowledge of data-based decision making: Dr. Frank Gresham, Dr. W. David Tilly, and Dr. Dennis Reid.

The 2009 Summit examined Data-Based Decision making in the context of the Wing Institute’s Evidence-Based Education Roadmap:

• Efficacy (What Works?)

• Effectiveness (When Does It Work?)

• Implementation (How Do We Make It Work?)

• Monitoring (Is It Working?)

2009 Summit participants included over seventy representatives from private and public agencies, state and local school agencies, health and community services, advocacy and parents. Click here to view the participant list. The day included presentations from leading experts in evidence-based special education, participant working sessions, and discussions of follow-up action plans.

 Agenda