Decision Center for Educational Excellence

As the school year has officially kicked off, educators across Arizona are planning for a very successful school year. To support educators in their plans to increase student success and to inform educational policy and practice, Helios Education Foundation and ASU created the Decision Center for Educational Excellence. 

The Decision Center for Educational Excellence powered by Helios Education Foundation is working to address the challenges facing the state’s education system.  The Center is developing a first-of-its kind computational model of Arizona’s education system, which will offer real-time feedback on how changes to policies, funding mechanisms and other interventions could affect the system as a whole.  

The focus of the Decision Center is the education system from pre-K through employment. The vision is to empower all Arizona students to maximize their potential, find a career that fits their interests and skills, and results in a good quality of life and people who will contribute to healthy and vibrant communities throughout the state. 

  The Decision Center will bring together all we know about the current state of the education system, utilize the many resources of ASU, and gather the insights of the varied education stakeholders in order to lead to change and better student outcomes. People will come together in ASU’s Decision Theater, and locations throughout the state, to discuss pressing education issues and come to consensus on where the education system is now, where we want it to be and what we must do in our communities and schools to get there. 

We are currently creating the foundation for this work – collecting data from many sources, developing partnerships with others, talking to stakeholders to inform them about the Center and to get their ideas, and planning our future activities. This winter we will share our progress and some initial analyses on high school students and their preparation for their future. 

In addition, we are building online tools to let schools and communities examine some of the data on education issues. We want to share our work widely around the state and empower communities to examine their issues and needs, and plan their path to improvement.

As we develop, we invite you, a stakeholder in our education system, to help us define where the education system is now, where we need to be and help chart how we are going to get there. To learn more visit our website at decisioncenter.asu.edu or contact me at joseph.oreilly@asu.edu.