Partnering on Prep

Share and Look at Data

RECOMMENDATION 4: Partners should commit to sharing and looking at data together to drive action

By the end of the first stage, partners must make a deep commitment to collecting, sharing and looking at data together. Though this can pose challenges—in some states and organizations, there are very strict policies around data-sharing and -privacy—partners must make the case internally and externally to share data in a structured and regular way. Ultimately, the data will focus partners on the most critical activities to pursue during the implementation stage.

Steps You Can Take

• Identify what data to collect and share it. Districts and teacher preparation programs often have an overabundance of data but struggle to know what data to examine together. Thus, partners should agree early on what specific data is the most critical to collect and share.
• Develop a data sharing agreement. Partners unanimously agreed that getting a data-sharing agreement in place was critical to solidifying the partnership and driving towards data-based decision-making.
• Build a collaborative research agenda to explore the data. Once data points are identified and the MOU signed, partners must commit to exploring the data together. In many cases, districts can lean on their teacher preparation programs, which often have strong analytic capacity, to support data analysis.

Highlighted Tools

• Sample Teacher Preparation Program Report

  (Indianapolis Public Schools)
• Data Sharing MOU

  (University of Nevada Reno)