Compton Unified School District Incorporates Data Analytics

The Challenge:

Compton Unified has a mission to empower leaders to lead, teachers to teach, and students to learn by fostering an environment that encourages leaders and teachers to be visionary, innovative, and accountable for the achievement of all students. The district found that one of the best ways to accomplish this was to use data and analytics to guide their decision making. However, the data that administrators at Compton collected seemed to provide more questions than answers.

Jorge Torres, Ed. D., Senior Director of College & Career Ready, and his team researched how other districts, such as Chicago Public Schools and Los Angeles Unified, intervened on students’ behalf to do the same for their students who were at risk of not graduating on time. The team believed that they had the data they needed but struggled with efficiently and effectively using it in their daily routines. They also needed the data to be both dynamic and visual so that it was easily understandable by staff. And, they needed it to be easily accessible, as some team members were too busy to regularly pull the data and others did not know how.

The Results:

Not only did Student Analytics Lab enable Compton to identify students in need of support so that appropriate interventions could be put into place, but it also enabled them to explore partnerships with companies to provide on-demand tutoring, especially for students with challenging schedules.

While it may be too early to assess the impact of 5Lab quantitatively, I can say that staff has raved about the simplicity in accessing and drilling down to make sense of the data.”