New USDOE Report Reveals Many States Struggle to Link Individual Student Test Data to the Proper Teacher

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Marty Reed, RANDA CEO

We've empowered the teachers to have control over their student data, nobody knows who taught a student more than that student's teacher.

Nashville, TN (PRWEB) February 06, 2014

In a recent report released by the United States Department of Education titled, "State Implementation of Reforms Promoted Under the Recovery Act," the agency revealed that many states struggle to link summative assessment data from individual students to the teacher who actually taught that student. Accuracy of this data relationship is critical considering new policies tying student assessment results to teacher effectiveness scores and, in some cases, teacher pay. This was reported to be the biggest challenge of the five specific challenges the study asked of the 50 State Education Agencies (SEAs) and the District of Columbia.

The report states, "The major challenge reported by the largest number of SEAs was that current data systems make linking student test data to individual teachers difficult (40 percent of SEAs implementing the reform)." The report then goes on to say that, "linking teacher and student data is necessary to evaluate educator effectiveness and support performance-based compensation systems, as outlined in the Recovery Act."

RANDA Solutions has been working on Teacher/Student Data Link (TSDL) for ten years and currently has a statewide system in place that is 99.4% accurate, compared to an 84% level of accuracy when RANDA first accessed the system. This industry-leading accuracy is a key factor in RANDA being able to deliver validated statewide assessment scores in 24 hours, allowing for spring scores to be used for decisions, such as graduation eligibility, before the school year is complete.

"We came at this problem with a unique approach," says RANDA CEO Marty Reed. "We've empowered the teachers to have ownership of their student data, because nobody knows who taught a student more than that student's teacher."

The RANDA system also allows for partial student claiming in instances of team teaching. The student record remains flagged until the teachers combine for 100% of the student's time. This statewide assessment data management system serves 91,000 users, handles over a million student records, and the typical user completes his or her process in 15 minutes.

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About RANDA Solutions

RANDA Solutions is an INC. 5000 software firm based in Nashville, TN serving the education sector. RANDA acquires, manages and utilizes data providing administrators and teachers a variety of education intelligence: Student Data, Educator Data, and Third-party Data (crime maps, community demographics, school climate, early warning data, etc.). Historical and live data reporting, along with additional customized content, is delivered via RANDA’s secure web portals and integrates seamlessly with RANDA’s cross-platform mobile applications for iPads and Android devices.

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