Leadership for data-based decision-making: Collaborative data teams, 2006

With the introduction of No Child Left Behind school administrators have been instructed to take student data and turn this data into information to be used in improving educational practice.  It is frequently assumed that the act of providing student data is sufficient to create a school or district driven by this data.  Although, many educators embrace the notion of becoming practitioners of data-based decision making, few have the background and perquisite skills to make this a reality. This article offers practical suggestions on how to build a data-based culture in schools

http://edadmin.edb.utexas.edu/datause/papers/Wayman-Midgley-Stringfield-AERA2006.pdf