ABSTRACT
Education data is complex. Thousands of data elements are collected in an education data system for reporting purposes. But, like a puzzle, something inherently complex can work for someone if they honor its complexity and use the best way to present its various pieces. If they share education data with others and/or support educators' data use, the way you present and share data is vital. The National Center for Education Statistics estimates less than 2 percent of school districts in the USA are able to turn data into information educators can use. Even when educators do use data, they often misunderstand it. For example, national studies of districts known for strong data use found teachers showed difficulty with question posing, data comprehension, and data interpretation, and teachers answered only 48 percent of questions correctly when drawing inferences from given data.
