The Center for Public Education, which is an initiative of the National School Boards Association, has created a new website, www.data-first.org, that features all sorts of data and explanations about education. The site, which was developed with a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is designed to help school leaders and educators, but I think it has some features that might be useful for anyone interested in schools.

For example, it will direct you to websites and reports where you can find out average class size for any school in the country, high school graduation requirements, percentage of children enrolled in preschool and about issues having to do with school funding. If you are an educator, you can even take a quiz to see how well your district works with/understands data.