Data Analytics
U North Carolina and SAS Launch a Dashboard to Monitor Teachers' Success
The University of North Carolina and business analytics firm SAS hope to boost enrollment in UNC’s Colleges of Education through improved performance tracking of teachers who graduate from the UNC system. SAS officials said a newly created Educator Quality Dashboard will also serve as an “innovative way to look at North Carolina’s teaching talent pipeline.”
Since 2010, yearly enrollment in UNC’s education programs decreased from 15,000 to just more than 11,000. SAS and UNC aim to stop the decline by examining trend data via the interactive dashboard.
In a press release, Alisa Chapman, UNC’s vice president for Academic and University Programs, said, “In collaboration with SAS, UNC has successfully implemented a core recommendation: developing a public, interactive, Web-based tool that ensures greater public accountability, increases transparency and facilitates data access for all education stakeholders.”
The Dashboard concept for educational institutions, policymakers and the public grew from a recommendation of the UNC Board of Governors Subcommittee on Teacher and School Leader Quality. The new tool is billed as a way to monitor, track and assess the performance of the UNC system and the preK-12 teachers who graduate from its 15 nationally accredited teacher education programs.
The dashboard uses SAS Visual Analytics to display multiple years of data on employment outcomes and retention of beginning teachers who work in North Carolina’s public schools.
“UNC has established itself as a leader in transparency, and in using data to uncover new opportunities to improve the state’s education system,” said Emily Baranello, SAS’s senior director of education practice.
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Greg Thompson is a freelance writer based in Fort Collins, CO.