ABSTRACT
Demographic data are extremely important for continuous school improvement. Demographics establish the current context of the school and describe trends. Trends help staffs predict and plan for the future, as well as understand all other data with which they work in their continuous school improvement efforts. Comprehensive demographic data inform about the structure of the school—the system—as well as leadership. Demographics are typically known as the statistical characteristics of human populations. Schools have lots of demographic data. Most schools have student information systems that house their demographic data, gathered on an ongoing basis. Most schools have student information systems that gather and store demographic data daily. Disaggregation provides powerful information in the analysis of school variables, test scores, and questionnaire results. Schools need to disaggregate their important student achievement, perceptions, and school process data by demographic variables that impact student learning to understand all aspects of the population of the school and look for problems and contributing causes.
