Having done much with districts in the past, I observed the same push to collect data and then make use of it in the classroom and at the district level. In the districts I encountered, there was plenty of data collection and there were even some basic reports each system might provide, but beyond that, very little thought went into `what to do with this data to turn it into actionable knowledge`. Districts would blindly throw hundreds of thousands of dollars at the problem of data collection with very little, and often none, at the actual analysis portion of the problem.
Districts often face even more fundamental problems, such as each software system being a silo to it's own data and being very hard to cross reference with other systems. SISes, LMSes, HR, and dozens of smaller systems existing in their own world. Many questions one might want to pose needs data from two or three of these. So, questions like `is Steve a much more pronounced risk of dropping out of high school` are hard/impossible to ask (depends on the software systems and data collection practices).
Districts often face even more fundamental problems, such as each software system being a silo to it's own data and being very hard to cross reference with other systems. SISes, LMSes, HR, and dozens of smaller systems existing in their own world. Many questions one might want to pose needs data from two or three of these. So, questions like `is Steve a much more pronounced risk of dropping out of high school` are hard/impossible to ask (depends on the software systems and data collection practices).