Insight. Applied.
SchoolBenchmarker, developed by us and Prism Decision Systems for the New York State Center for Rural Schools, has just been relaunched with the latest schools data.
The mobile web application allows school managers to compare their schools against high-performing peers.
The core technology could be used to compare any kind of operating units, such as healthcare providers or retail branches.
Decision Mechanics, in partnership with Prism Decision Systems, have just completed a benchmarking mobile web-app for the New York Center for Rural Schools. The app, SchoolBenchmarker, allows school leaders to benchmark their schools against similar, but higher performing, schools.
SchoolBenchmarker is an HTML5/CSS3/jQuery Mobile application that draws data from a RESTful ASP.NET MVC 3 web-service.
Comments from users include:
SchoolBenchmarker is great! I love that it is so simple to use. In seconds my administrators can get the benchmarking information they’ve been asking for—information that would take an experienced database expert days or more to prepare.
Cheryl Lyn Covell, Data Analyst, Tompkins Seneca Tioga BOCES
SchoolBenchmarker is an awesome tool! Within minutes, I found two phenomenal benchmarks. I believe we will be able to learn a lot from these schools and will be contacting them very soon.
Terry Dougherty, Superintendent, Hancock Central School District
SchoolBenchmarker is fantastic! In a few minutes, I can get the benchmarking information it took my district a month to get last year working on our own!
Mark P. Mondanaro, Superintendent of Schools, Kenmore-Town of Tonawanda UFSD
NoDropouts.org just reported on Greater Southern Tier Board of Cooperative Education Services’ roll-out of CohortTracker™.
In their article, they note that:
Of course, once schools leaders have a better idea of who is most at risk, there is simply no substitute for good, old-fashioned compassion—and good, old-fashioned elbow grease.
Indeed. Technology is only ever part of the solution.
The Greater Southern Tier Board of Cooperative Education Services (GST BOCES) has released CohortTracker™ to fourteen school districts within its region. CohortTracker™, developed by Decision Mechanics and Prism Decision Systems, is an early warning system for identifying students who may be in danger of failing to graduate.
Students’ progress is assessed using an algorithm that takes into account:
These metrics are transformed into a visual “traffic light” risk indicator, allow guidence councillors and teachers to identify the need for interventions.
According to Steve Manning, Manager of Computer Services for GST BOCES,
We are very pleased to have gone live with CohortTracker™. The app is simple, user friendly and extremely effective. School principals and guidance counselors will find this early warning system to be a valuable new tool for tracking and managing their students to successful, on-time graduation.
GST BOCES will now turn its attention toward statewide rollout. "We hope to have the app available to all New York State BOCES Regional Information Centers before the end of this school year.", Manning said.
CohortTracker™ can now be licensed to other US states (and other countries) through Prism Decision Systems, LLC.
The application was developed in ASP.NET MVC 3, using a Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 data repository. Student data can be imported from other SQL Server databases or via CohortML XML documents.
For more information, see: