This tip sheet will assist you in locating critical data related to your school or

district or data to compare your school or district to others by using the information compiled at the Education Data Partnersip (Ed-Data) web site.

Step 1

Begin by locating the icon for your browser of choice. (This tip uses Netscape Communicator as its example browser.)

Step 2

Double-click the icon to open the browser. (If you have more than one user configured to use your computer, the User Profile window will appear, and you must select a user, and proceed. Otherwise, Netscape will automatically open the browser window.)

Step 3

Locate the Netsite field near the top of the window. The address of the default home page will be listed there and highlighted.

Step 4

Insert the address of the Ed-Data web site listed below:

Step 5

Press the Return or Enter key.

Step 6

Your browser will take you to the home page of the Ed-Data web site.

Step 7

The Ed-Data home page contains five main sections:

• New at this Site
• The Partnership
• Profiles and Reports
• Education Information
• API

Step 8

In the bottom left corner of the page, the logo of each member in the Ed-Data partnership is linked to its home page. You can visit any of the partner organizations by clicking on their logo.

Step 9

At the bottom of the page, a link is provided to the 2000 API scores. Click the link to find your scores or the scores of other schools.

Step 10

Once you reach the API page, you will need to indicate the county, district, school, type of report, and year for the information you are seeking.

Step 11

When you use the County pulldown menu to select your county of choice, the choices of districts and schools will change to match your county. You can then select the appropriate district and school from the pulldown menus.

Step 12

After selecting the district and school, you can choose from three reports, and from the school years 1999, 2000, or most current year.

Step 13

Once you have made your choices, a banner with the name of your school will appear.

Step 14

Beneath the banner you will find an API Decile Rank Graphic showing the ranking of your school compared to other schools.

Step 15

A large chart appears at the bottom of the page with information about Base API, Growth Target, Growth API Target, Statewide Rank, and Similar Schools Rank.

Step 16

Each of the linked sections above will take you to a narrative web page that will help you to understand the API indexing system.

Step 17

Return to the Ed-Data home Page by clicking the link at the top of the page.

Step 18

Now that you are back at the home page, locate the Profiles and Reports section.

Step 19

Click the link for State Profile and Reports.

Step 20

A window will appear titled "Report/Profile Navigation." Use the pop-up window to select the report you would like to see.

Step 21

Begin by selecting the Statewide STAR Test Results. A new window will appear allowing you to choose between years 1998, 1999, and 2000.

Step 21

After selecting your year of choice, you may select from the options available in the Statewide Star Test Results window.

Step 22

Select the SAT-9 Results for 2000 National Percentile Ranking. The following table will appear.

You can continue making selections using the previous navigation window to view additional statewide results.

Step 23

Return to the Ed-Data Home page, then click the link for School Profiles and Reports. Use this link when you want to find out any data about a particular school site.

Step 24

You will notice that the navigational structure is identical to the API link you connected to earlier.

Step 25

As before, select the county and school you would like, then select the report and year.

Step 26

This time, select the School Profile for the most current year. The following chart appears, with three recipe menus at the top. The first menu provides general information about the school in the following series of charts:

Step 26

To receive similar charts of information dealing with the specifics of student data and staffing data, click the menu headings at the top of the School Profile window.

Step 27

Return to the Ed-Data home page. In the Profiles and Reports section, you can also find similar information for counties and districts by clicking the appropriate links.

Step 28

The next section of interest on the Ed-Data home page is the Education Information column. The first section provides a snapshot on how California schools compare with others. Click that link.

Step 28

A number of options are available from the snapshot page. Select the link for California’s rankings.

• California’s Rankings, 1998-99
• Expenditures per Pupil
• Enrollments
• Pupils Enrolled per Teacher
• Other States: Rations and Expenditures

Step 29

This page provides a general narrative about how California compares with other states, along with the following graphs:

The additional links on the snapshot page also provide numerous graphs comparing California educational data to other states.

Step 29

Return to the Ed-Data home page and select the Education Issues and Background link. This page contains over a dozen narrative articles discussing educational issues, complete with supporting graphs. Click the link to School District Bond and Tax Elections to view the narrative and the following graphs:

Step 30

Return to the Ed-Data home page and find the New at this Site section in the upper left corner. This section contains a variety of information about the web site, including a Help menu, an index, and more. One of the more valuable links in this section is the Data Files. The databases on the Ed-Data site are not downloadable by the general public, but the links from the Data Files page will take you to the sources of data where many files are downloadable. Visit the Data Files link.

Most of the downloadable files are available through California Department of Education links.

That concludes your tour of the Education Data Partnership (Ed-Data) site. We hope this information helps you with your daily tasks as an administrator as they apply to data-driven decision making.