(Co-written by Anita McGinty, Ann Partee, Allison Lynn Gray, Walter Herring and Jim Soland, all of the School of Education and Human Development) With the largest-ever federal investment in education, hundreds of billions of dollars are flowing to states and school districts under the American Rescue Act. The call is for states to use this money for innovation across a broad set of priorities. As schools and school districts consider students’ needs and how to allocate resources, data are critical to the decision-making process.