State Data Directors & Staff
Each year the Data Quality Campaign Recognition Program highlights the critical role of leadership in changing the culture around data use for continuous improvement. Below are the award recipients for the State Data Directors and/or Staff of the Year award.
Congratulations 2009 Award Recipient
Mickey Garrison, School Improvement Director, Education Enterprise Steering Committee (Oregon)
Building the capacity of Oregon’s educators to use longitudinal data to improve student achievement
As the School Improvement Director, Mickey Garrison is guiding the multitude of stakeholder groups in the Oregon education system to collaboratively implement a statewide plan for school improvement. At the heart of her reform efforts is the Oregon DATA Project, for which she serves as training director. She is the driving force behind efforts to successfully build a sustainable statewide framework to build the capacity of all educators to use data to improve teaching and learning. The professional development program is designed around three strands and has already been implemented statewide: “Creating a Culture of Data Quality,” “Using Data to Improve Learning in Districts and Schools,” and “Using Data to Improve Learning in the Classroom.” Overall, the professional development program has reached 132 unique districts and over 2,000 unique educators from 2008 through May 2009. In addition to a comprehensive professional development program targeted at the district, building, and classroom levels, Garrison has developed strong partnerships with the Oregon School Boards Association and the Oregon Education Association to further integrate the training around the effective use of data through all levels of the profession. Most recently, Garrison helped secure a $3.6 million IES SLDS grant to work with the state’s seven institutions of higher education to incorporate the data-use training modules into courses offered as part of each institution's teacher-training program. Topics include: Formative Evaluation; Evaluation Statistics and Growth Models; Large Scale Database Analytics; and e-Learning and Differentiated Instruction. She has also ensured that all of this work is continuously informed by a rigorous evaluation plan.
For more information, view the press release.
2008 Award Recipient
Kathy Gosa, Director of Information Technology, Kansas Department of Education
Kathy Gosa joined KSDE from private industry and brought to the agency a vision to integrate all areas of the organization under a cohesive data system. Under Gosa's leadership, KSDE has deployed a statewide longitudinal data system that provides valuable insights to policymakers, but also reports valuable information about students back to the teachers to help them plan instruction. Kathy has been instrumental in building governance policies that have codified how data are shared and used throughout and across education systems in Kansas. She has focused on ensuring the quality and promoting the use of these data at the school, district, and state levels.
For more information about Kansas's data governance program, read the reference guide; Executive Order MOU regarding data sharing; and Data Quality Campaign policy brief, State Action 3: Data Governance, highlighting Kansas.
Kansas's work was also highlighted at a Data Quality Campaign Quarterly Issue Meeting in July 2008. A corresponding PowerPoint presentation and policy brief highlight K-12 and higher education leaders working to develop a data governance program that unifies the people, processes, and technology to institutionalize and facilitate student-level data-based decision-making.
2007 Award Recipient
Corey Chatis, Director of Data Quality, Tennessee Department of Education
Corey is overseeing a complete overhaul of the data management system for the Tennessee Department of Education in the State of Tennessee and is coordinating much of the work being funded by the IES grant awarded in 2005, including the development of a new data warehouse and a network of data managers and data reporting avenues throughout the department. With her leadership, the Tennessee Department of Education is on the threshold of having a cutting-edge data system that will be well equipped to meet the reporting needs and research capabilities needed by the policy makers.
2006 Award Recipient
Bethann Canada, Director, Educational Information Department, Virginia Department of Education
Bethann is a pioneer in the field of data quality and is the architect of Virginia's statewide information system that established decision support tools for local education agencies. She is considered a national, state and local expert in data sharing and use.
Virginia's work was highlighted at a Data Quality Campaign Quarterly Issue Meeting in June 2007. A corresponding PowerPoint presentation and policy brief highlight the current status of district, state education agency, and higher education efforts to seamlessly share data with each other to create an environment for improved P-20 alignment and policy decisions.
Virginia was also highlighted in a Data Quality Campaign policy brief, Creating Longitudinal Data Systems: Lessons Learned by Leading States, written to better understand how states went about designing their data systems, what it cost to create them, what immediate and tangible results were achieved, and what lessons learned could be shared with other states.