About Bento

Bento is a free data visualization tool for decision makers in education. The tool provides free access to survey data from public school teachers and principals across the country, and to state- and district-level education outcomes data.

Bento was developed by MGT, working in close collaboration with education practitioners in state education agencies, school districts, and education foundations. For more information, please contact us at bento@mgt.us.

About the RAND Corporation’s American Educator Panels

RAND’s American Educator Panels (AEP) help share the voices of the nation’s teachers and school leaders. The AEP consists of the American Teacher Panel (ATP) and the American School Leader Panel (ASLP), which are nationally representative samples of educators who provide their feedback on important issues of educational policy and practice. RAND established these two educator panels in 2014 when new policies such as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and Common Core State Standards (CCSS), as well as new forms of assessments and evaluations, sparked the need to understand how these policies impact schools and student achievement. Since their initiation, the panels have continued to grow to better represent the voices of teachers and school leaders.
Click here for more information on AEP.

If you are a researcher looking for .csv or stata files from the AEP Surveys, you can learn more about RAND’s AEP Data Portal here.

Who comprises the survey panel?

The ATP and ASLP are composed of a nationally-representative sample of teachers and principals selected from 2,300 public schools listed in the U.S. Department of Education’s Common Core of Data (CCD). Schools listed in the CCD span K-12 grades, school size, poverty status (as determined by the percent of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch), population density, and region. Within schools, panelists are selected to represent various levels of experience (novice or experienced) and subject area. Invited panelists who decide to enroll remain part of the panels, even if they switch schools. Periodic recruitment of new panelists ensures that the panels remain representative of national educators and meet the needs of researchers.

Who processes the data collected from the survey?

Following each survey administration, the data collected from the ATP and ASLP panelists is cleaned and analyzed by RAND and Westat. When data are ready to be shared, RAND works with its educational partners including the Americans Associations of School Administrators and Colleges of Teacher Education, the American Federation of Teachers, and National Education Association, to distribute these results with other education leaders.

For more information on RAND’s educator panels, including the motivation for their founding, the methodology used to create a nationally-representative panel and recent findings from the panel, please refer to the American Educator Panel homepage and RAND’s publication The American Teacher Panel and the American School Leader Panel: Two Innovative New Tools to “Take the Pulse” of America’s Educators.

About MGT

MGT is a national technology and advisory solutions leader serving state, local government, education (SLED) and targeted commercial clients. Our specialized solutions solve the most critical issues that live at the top of our clients’ leadership agenda. We partner to help clients build resilience, implement systematic change and strengthen their foundations, now and for the future. MGT is committed to impacting communities for good.

For more information, please contact us at bento@mgt .us.

Thank You to Our Sponsor

This work was funded through a grant from the The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.