Decision Center for Educational Excellence

$2,500,000 Invested

5,800Sahuarita students are served by
nine schools and one early education center

Sahuarita, Arizona is a town of about 25,000 people in Southern Arizona. The local school district consists of nine schools and one early education center and serves more than 5,800 students.

Recently, community leaders wanted to examine their education system to gain a greater understanding of how their students are performing, how they are supporting their school district, and how their students are matriculating to postsecondary education opportunities. They visited the Decision Center for Educational Excellence to explore these issues and view a data visualization of key demographic and education indicators for their community.

For example, the Decision Center data was able to highlight economic data such the top industries represented in Sahuarita and explore social factors, such as births to teen moms, adults without health insurance, and grandparents raising grandchildren.

In looking at the education indicators, the group was able to explore college-going rates, FAFSA completion rates, graduation rates, absenteeism rates, and other key indicators.

It is helpful to see how communities compare to other communities with similar demographics. We believe this tool will help identify specific ways communities and school districts can work together on behalf of all students in Arizona.
Joe O’Reilly, Director, Decision Center for Educational Excellence

The Decision Center for Educational Excellence is a partnership between Arizona State University and Helios Education Foundation. The Center brings together data and convenes key stakeholders to examine the education system and model and visualize the impact of potential new policies and innovative solutions on education outcomes. The Decision Center for Educational Excellence is fully operational and future work will be expanded to include workforce and community development data analysis.

Collect
local and national data on student performance, schools, and the current education system

Leverage
ASU resources including content knowledge, analytics, computational modeling, and visualization

Drive
stakeholder involvement among educators, parents, students, policymakers, civic groups, business leaders, and others

Decision Center for Educational Excellence

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