Illinois’ implementation of the Every Students Succeeds Act (ESSA) along with other Illinois policy shifts regarding balanced accountability and evidence-based funding will require school leaders to adopt more evidence-based practices with respect to school improvement. Evidence-based practice is the disciplined and scientific approach of using data in the form of evidence about school or systems effectiveness. This academy will teach school leaders to effectively use data to foster a culture of evidence-based practice, align stakeholders, and ensure allocation of resources toward practices that have proven to accelerate student growth.

Aimed at superintendents and other senior administrators, the outcomes of this academy are:

1.  Participants will be able to articulate simple but impactful school improvement questions to promote an evidence-based culture;

2.  Participants will be able to identify observable data elements needed to answer school improvement questions;

3.  Participants will be able to calculate the effect size of local school improvement plans on student growth; 

4.  Participants will be able to draw meaningful inferences from data.

For the Application/Dissemination, participants will develop a school improvement initiative and a plan to evaluate its impact. Participants are encouraged to bring a real-life initiative, along with relevant materials and data, with them to develop.