This report sets out to define and construct a working model of a school management guide that will help school officials, school leaders, and community members make sense of the mountains of data they are generating. It is not so much a map to buried treasure as it is a guide to action. It does not say "X marks the spot," but it does provide some general guidance on where to start digging and how to begin. This guide grew from an extensive study of school district leaders and how they use data in making decisions. It is informed by analyses of how leaders in other areas of community life try to understand how their public institutions measure up against public institutions elsewhere. It is designed to assist leaders --of individual schools, school districts, and state education systems -- improve school management. One way it attempts to do this is by describing how leaders can use key indicators to understand and use the data they already have available. Through carefully selected indicators, school leaders can examine how well their schools are doing in relation to comparable schools elsewhere, as well as how things are changing over time. The foundation of the guide is work completed over the last six years at the University of Washington?s Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE), much of it supported by The Wallace Foundation. This work focused on the achievement gap as measured by Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) -- the state's standardized testing system, national and statewide dropout statistics, national studies of superintendents and principals, and extensive work on school and school district reform, including school finance.