Indiana education officials have shared a first look at what the state's new school performance dashboard could look like. It's still in the early design phase, with the state planning to roll out the new dashboard later this year.
The Indiana State Board of Education and its staff have been developing the dashboard since last fall. The board has decided which data points should be used to illustrate schools' progress on supporting student development in five key areas.
Now, staff are figuring out how the dashboard should present that information to the public. Officials said they want the new dashboard to be modern and easy to use. They plan to have different pages where users can see school summaries, data trends and make comparisons.
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Ron Sandlin is the Indiana Department of Education's school performance and transformation director. He said a central goal is to balance making it easy to use with offering a comprehensive data picture.
"It is intentionally designed as a tool to tell a story versus the traditional sense of a dashboard which is: go in and kind of make judgments or evaluate the overall performance of a school," Sandlin said.
The department said it's working with different groups – like educators, parents and community members – to help shape the dashboard. Officials plan to launch the initial, operational version this fall.
Contact reporter Jeanie at jlindsa@iu.edu or follow her on Twitter at @jeanjeanielindz.