From Data to Action

A Community Approach to Improving Youth Outcomes

Milbrey W. McLaughlin, Rebecca A. London, Milbrey W. McLaughlin, Rebecca A. London

• Publisher: Harvard Education Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781612505480
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Evaluation & Assessment in Education

This book is a welcome guide for educators, civic leaders, and researchers looking for ways to leverage data to identify the most effective policies, interventions, and use of resources for their communities. In the current era of reform, much has been made of the fact that there are many influences that shape children beyond the walls of the schoolhouse. Powerful data "warehouses" have been built to track children and interventions within school bureaucracies and in other social service sectors. Yet these data systems are rarely linked to provide a holistic view of how individual children are faring both in and out of school and which interventions—or combinations thereof—are most promising. Privacy laws and institutional traditions have made such collaborations difficult, if not impossible. Until now. The Youth Data Archive, based at the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities at Stanford University, is an effort to blaze a new path to the productive use of cross-agency data now employed by researchers, school officials, and service providers in San Francisco, San Mateo, Alameda, and Santa Clara counties. Editors Milbrey McLaughlin and Rebecca A. London, leaders of the Youth Data Archive, bring together participants who describe the initiative and its challenges and successes. The participants also give detailed background on how the archive was built and how it has led to improvements in services, particularly for children at risk. This book is a welcome guide for educators, civic leaders, and researchers looking for ways to leverage data to identify the most effective policies, interventions, and use of resources for their communities.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• One: Using Cross-agency Longitudinal Data for Improvement of Schools, Programs, and Policies for Youth
• Two: Transferring Knowledge: Using Data to Examine Students’ Educational Transitions
• Three: Tying Youth Health and Wellness to Other Developmental Domains Using Linked Data
• Four: “They Are All Our Kids”: Examining Students Across Sectors
• Five: “You Can’t Point Fingers at Data”: Cross-agency Collaboration and Shared Data from a Community Perspective
• Six: The Redwood City School District and John W. Gardner Center Partnership: Using Integrated Longitudinal Data
• Seven: Beyond Administrative Data: Using Multiple Methods to Study Youth Outcomes
• Eight: What Makes the Youth Data Archive Actionable?
• Nine: The Youth Data Archive in Reflection: Contributions to the Local Youth Sector and Research Community
• Appendix One: Legal Guidelines for Data Sharing and Confidentiality
• Appendix Two: Sample Data Use Agreement for School Districts
• Appendix Three: Sample Data Use Agreement for Organizations Other than School Districts
• Appendix Four: Secure Server Documentation and Information Security Policies
• Notes
• Acknowledgments
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors
• Index