There is an enormous opportunity ahead for ED, states, districts, schools, principals, teachers and, of course, students, to rewrite the rules of education in the US. Beyond the programs and innovations, the most meaningful advancement that can materially change the landscape of education in the US is longitudinal data systems that can follow individual students throughout their formal education. We are flying blind in the education reform world and without data (read truth and transparency) we will only have limited impact for few students rather than radical improvement for all students.
The following excerpt from a Wall Street Journal article by Gerald Seib stresses the value of data in reforming the US education system.
Data translate into transparency. Transparency allows administrators to track students, and student performance can be linked back to teacher performance, and teacher performance can be linked back to the education colleges that produce the teachers in the first place.