Author Archives: Matthew Rhoads, Ed.D.

The Power of Analyzing Statewide Education Data: Self-Affirming Conclusions that Prompt Us to Dig Deeper Into the Data

Data is powerful, especially in the realm of education. At times, it may be self-affirming while on the other hand, it makes you question your current practices and policies because the data identifies further ramifications that make us have to dig deeper to determine what’s going on as well as devising solutions to the problems we face as educators. But, most importantly, it tells a story about the students we serve, which then we are called to do something about it as teachers and administrators. Over the last few days, I have been able to analyze several data sets that have been collected from the California Department of Education. The data sets I analyzed encompass all of the 2018 California K-12 School demographics, state testing scores, attendance rates, suspension rates, and funding mechanisms. My goal was to transform the data into several self-affirming stories of what the data is telling us as well as how we dig deeper into the stories the data is illustrating to determine new insights into we how to solve the problems we have identified.

Doctoral Research Update – Working Title and Progress on Chapters 1, 2, and 3.

Doctoral Research Update – Working Title and Progress on Chapters 1, 2, and 3: Chapter 1, 2, and 3 of my dissertation are coming along very well. While revision and editing are needed for each chapter, major progress has been made this summer!

Summer 2018 China Trip

This summer I was lucky enough to travel to China for my doctoral program. Our trip spanned 15 days and encompassed the cities of Shanghai, Beijing, and Xi’an. During our stay in China, we had meetings with K-12 and post-secondary educators, international education attorney’s, and officials from the Confucius Institute.  In this blog post, I will outline two focal points pertaining to K-12 education and higher education I was able to research and analyze over the course of the trip. In addition, I will discuss some fun sidenotes and tourist destinations we were able to visit during this trip. 

Evaluating California’s Tax System: Ranking the Tax System and Determining the Best Tax to Fund Education

California’s tax code is a complex system that has been reformed numerous times over the course of its history. Currently, California has some of the highest overall taxes in the United States. Politicians in California argue about taxes during every election cycle as well as when they determine the state’s budget. Democrats advocate for increasingContinue reading “Evaluating California’s Tax System: Ranking the Tax System and Determining the Best Tax to Fund Education”

New Book: Igniting Your Teaching with Educational Technology – A Resource for New Teachers

A New Book! I would like to announce the release of Igniting Your Teaching with Educational Technology: A Resource for New Teachers I helped write with my doctoral cohort. As a cohort, we worked extremely hard to complete this project over the course of the last quarter. I am proud of our accomplishment and I extremelyContinue reading “New Book: Igniting Your Teaching with Educational Technology – A Resource for New Teachers”

Doctoral Research and New Book Coming Soon!

  In this blog post, I am going to be discussing my doctoral research as well as a book I am helping co-author regarding Edtech tools for new teachers coming out in early 2018. Doctoral Research First, I am really getting into my doctoral research. My research involves data mining (DM), data-driven decision making (DDDM),Continue reading “Doctoral Research and New Book Coming Soon!”