1. Salient Education
- Financial Performance
- Student Success
- Policies & Best Practices
The Salient approach is to enable executives, administrators, professors, teachers, advisors and others to
use information interactively and independently, to see with greater speed and in greater depth where,
when and on whom investments are having measurable effect and how costs can be reduced without
affecting quality of service. Decision-makers can act timelier, repeat practices and investments that work
and eliminate those that don’t. To achieve this end, Salient offers technology that enables non-technical
knowledge workers to use intelligence within the context of their everyday responsibilities without need
of expert resources. They can inquire easily and dynamically, according to needs of the moment, evaluate
history and progress against plans down to fine details, and then act in time to affect outcomes. With all
data refreshed each day, it becomes both possible and practical to closely monitor the effects of change,
however small. The end point is much more precise control over allocations of financial and human
resources. Create an organized source of performance information: Salient Education K-12 Performance
Management for Educational Institutions Salient Streamlines Implementation
1. Connect Reach into existing systems to leverage data. No IT changes required.
2. Precisely Measure Value Add immediately drill down into data sets and metrics. No support or waiting
necessary.
3. Make Information Actionable Take immediate, fact-based action. Guesswork no longer required.
K-12
Meeting the Challenges of Primary and Secondary Education
Salient Education Salient pulls together every aspect of K-12 education to provide a real picture of both
financial and academic performance, for an entire school or district all the way down to an individual
student. Instant graphical views show performance indicators by any perspective, quickly revealing:
Where?, When?, Who?, and How Much? Teachers, counselors, and administrators can easily see what is
going on and take action in time to make a difference. The Salient system delivers clear and timely
feedback. Volume Students Success Risk Home Life Extracurricular Activities Attendance Patterns
Student Characteristics Test Scores Curriculum Financial Performance Cohort Studies Special Education
Costs Curriculum Costs Operational Costs HR Cost Administrative Technology Muni-/State/Federal
Revenue Support Performance Management for Education 5
Salient Education – K-12
Academic Performance

2. Measure academic performance from highest levels down to individual performers—school performance,
curriculum performance, teachers’ performance and student progress. Academic StatusHow many
students are in good standing? How many are at risk? See how numbers have changed since last semester
or any other time. Instantly list students and drill in for a closer look at course load, financial information,
grades, etc.
1. Select any categories to see totals. Approximately 26% of students are in some type of academic
trouble, while 73% of students are in good standing or better.
2. Examine any group of students. Last semester, 287 students received academic warnings. A cohort
study can be performed in seconds to focus on those students.
3. Did academic performance improve? Of those 287 students who received the academic warnings, 95
are now in good standing. Click. It is essential to know what is being invested and how it affects each
student.
Salient Education – K-12
How effective are remedial courses at bringing students up to speed? Basic Writing Skills is a remedial
course designed to prepare students for Academic Writing 1.
1. In the Fall semester, 250 students took Basic Writing Skills. Did it help those students?
2. Non-technical users can easily select criteria for cohort analyses. This study examines students who
took Basic Writing Skills in the Fall.
3. What happened next semester? Of the 250 students, 121 enrolled in Academic Writing 1, and received
an average grade of
1.2. A quick comparison with the original view shows that the average grade for these students is lower
than the overall grade for Academic Writing 1. Fifty-eight students retook Basic Writing Skills, and the
remaining students didn't take any English course. Course Effectiveness Academic Performance
(continued) Performance Management for Education 7
Salient Education – K-12
Correlate discipline incidents and absences with GPA. A Scattergram shows number of
disciplineincidents and GPA for each student.
1. Easily spot areas of concern. For example, some students had more than 10 discipline incidents during
a single semester.
2. View any two measures. Here we'll switch to a view of GPA versus absences.
3. Students with more absences had lower grades. Highlighting shows user-defined ranges of data. Here
at-risk students (GPA lower than 2.0) appear in red.

3. 4. Easily create actionable lists. These 175 students were absent more than 5 times and have a GPA of
less than 2.0.
Academic Performance (continued)
1. A comparative view shows GPA for each of several math courses for students who received tutoring.
Tutoring benefits students taking some courses more than other courses. But which? Compare results for
groups of students who did and did not receive tutoring.
2. Switch to a different cohort to view GPA by course for students without any tutoring.
3. For some courses, students who received tutoring performed better than students without any tutoring.
For example, tutoring appeared to help the students taking Arithmetic (GPA of 2.2 versus 1.9).
Tutoring
Click Performance Management for Education 9
Salient Education – K-12
Student Attendance and Activities
Academic performance is closely tied with attendance, as well as involvement in extracurricular
activities. Salient Education easily tracks these metrics for improved initiatives and success. Immediately
spot students with poor attendance rates before academic performance is affected.
1. An exception test identifies students who have been absent more than 5 times this semester. The
criteria are completely customizable.
2. A graph shows the percentage of students in each category who were absent more than 5 times this
semester. The blue portion of the bars represents the students with several absences. Over 10% of students
with academic warnings were absent more than 5 times.
3. List those students. Contact information is available for immediate action. Reducing Absences
Click 10 Performance Management for Education
Salient Education – K-12
Correlate student participation in activities with academic performance. A Scattergram shows GPA and
number of extracurricular activities for each student.
1. Spot trends in academic performance associated with extracurricular activities. This view indicates that
students enrolled in one or more extracurricular activities have a higher GPA.
2. Create lists of the students with no extracurricular activities and the students with at least one
extracurricular activity.
3. A comparison of these two groups shows that the average GPA for students enrolled in extracurricular
activities is higher (3.1 versus 2.4).

4. Demographic Intelligence
Incorporate census data and family information: age, income, employment, language, ethnicity, etc.
Instantly see trends and areas of concern. Track information about parents siblings, income, and more, for
a more complete view of each student. Roll up results to see trends.
For example, how does parents' marital status affect GPA?
1. A graph shows changes in the number of students with married parents, single parents, divorced
parents, etc. over time.
2. View any measure. Here we'll switch to a view of GPA for each category. A look at GPA over time
reveals a correlation between parents' marital status and GPA. Average GPA has improved for students
with married parents (dark blue line), while average GPA has declined for separated, remarried, and
divorced groups (green, yellow, and light blue lines).Family Information
Salient Education – K-12
Financial Performance
Salient Education continuously monitors revenues and costs to ensure a financially sound institution.
Integration of data from any source—academics, facilities, funding, HR, etc.—allows a true picture of
investments and results. Understand how much each entity costs and what it's worth. The results allow
better decision making and planning. View financial performance by source of funding, expense category,
or any other way.Drill into any area to see historical performance or line item details.
1. Examine changes in spending by category. Health Insurance Premiums are up since the same time last
year.
2. Trend expenses over time. Turn on graph smoothing to minimize distracting luctuations. Overall,
expenses for Health Insurance Premiums have increased over time.Expense Investigation Performance
Management for Education 13
Salient Education – K-12
Bringing It All Together
Salient Performance Management brings together data from every available system for a complete picture
of the factors affecting efficiency and performance. This value scoring and mining technology presents a
comprehensive activity based measurement and knowledge transfer capability for educators seeking to
monitor and improve performance over the entire institution, and for every student within it.
 Human Resources
 Financial Systems
 Budgets
 Reporting & Analysis Systems
 Student Management Systems

5. Improving Education Across the Board
Decisions from all departments and levels of management affect student success and financial
performance. Salient Education measures investments and results across and throughout