What We Do

The Office of Evaluation, Research, and Accountability (ERA) seeks to continuously improve Philadelphia’s schools by encouraging the use of evidence in day-to-day planning and decision-making. ERA strives to inspire school leaders to enact change within their schools and communities through the use of understandable, clear, and actionable data. Across offices, our primary focus is to design, encourage, and uphold evidence-based practices that can be used by the School District and City of Philadelphia to generate the theory and knowledge necessary to improve programs and services for students and families. It is our mission to ensure that District data from ERA offices are accurate, meaningful, user-friendly, and practice-oriented.

As part of this work, we:

  • Support student learning: Our Office of Research and Evaluation (ORE) conducts research designed to support student learning and development. Our areas of inquiry include college and career development, effective instruction, equity, health and nutrition, literacy, math, and more.
  • Support schools: Our Planning and Evidence-based Supports Office (PESO) leads the development of school- and District-level comprehensive plans, leads trainings and publishes monthly data guides for school leadership and staff, and provides guidance to schools about the policy requirements of various federal programs, including Title I, NCLB, and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).
  • Support District initiatives: We work closely with program offices on District priorities like developing the strategic plan (Accelerate Philly), reporting progress toward priorities at monthly Board meetings, facilitating cross-office working groups, developing project-specific logic models, planning workshops for the Strategy Office, completing surveys as needed for the Pennsylvania Department of Education and the Council of Great City Schools, and data verification.
  • Maintain and disseminate performance and accountability data: Our District Performance Office (DPO) maintains the District’s internal QlikBAM data dashboard and provides user support, produces our Open Data files, develops the School Progress Report on Education and Equity (SPREE), helps fulfill Data Requests, and publishes an annual school accountability report.
  • Manage data availability, usability, quality, and security: Our Office of Data Governance (ODG) establishes good data use practices and ensures the quality and integrity of available data.
  • Coordinate assessment administration: Our Office of Assessment maintains the Assessment Calendar, coordinates federal, state, and local administration of assessments, and provides assessment verification for the annual School Selection process.
  • Design and administer surveys: We design and administer the District’s surveys, including the annual Philly School Experience Survey, the state-mandated Senior Exit Survey, and the Career and Technical Education (CTE) Graduate Follow-Up Survey.
  • Review and track all research efforts in the District: We value research that contributes to improved educational outcomes for students. Our Research Review Committee (RRC) reviews and approves proposals for research in the District.
  • Provide progress monitoring data for the Goals & Guardrails: We provide The Board of Education with data to evaluate whether the District is on-track, near-track, or off-track with its targets for each Goal and Guardrail.