Panel Description

There has never been more education data. There has also never been a wider gap between the data that exists and the data that reaches someone in time to change a decision.

Most decisions get made with state and local data, but the three levels are wired together, and right now all three are under strain. This panel puts people from each level in the same room to ask a deceptively simple question: what do policy and practice need from data, and where does it get lost in transit between the people who collect it and the people who must act on it?

The conversation is candid and practical — what’s being lost at each level, why it matters for real decisions, and what it would take to build a data system that’s actually built for use.

What the Panel Takes On

• Where is the biggest gap between the data the field produces and what policy and practice need?
• What separates research that shapes decisions from research that sits unused?
• Decision-makers need data that is trustworthy, timely, and measures what they care about. Where are the hardest tradeoffs?
• As capacity contracts at every level, what is genuinely at risk — and what simply cannot be replaced?

Moderator

Carolyn Grim, Agora Education Research

Panelists (in speaking order: local → state → federal)

• Cara Jackson — Local lens. Senior Fellow for Research and Evidence Use, Center for Outcomes-Based Contracting
• Stacy Loewe — State lens. Director of Research, Learning Policy Institute
• Rachel Dinkes — Federal lens (the system). President and CEO, Knowledge Alliance
• Tom Snyder — Federal lens (nuts & bolts). Associate, Agora Education Research

The Lost in Time ARA Webinar Recap is linked above. Download it and keep it beside you while you watch.