This brochure highlights the reasons why state data systems should incorporate longitudinal data to maximize the quality of information used in education.
The Data Quality Campaign (DQC) is a national collaborative initiative working to encourage and support policymakers’ efforts to fully develop and use longitudinal data to improve education. During the past year, the DQC has generated power behind the issues of data collection, availability and use. A growing network of committed partners at the national, state and institutional levels is shining a brighter and wider spotlight on pragmatic ways to build and use longitudinal data systems to improve educational outcomes. The DQC recognizes that policymakers at every level face important, timely challenges in building and using data systems; it will take significant investment, support and capacity building at the local, state and national levels to achieve that goal. The policy actions noted here reflect the common concerns, shared vision and lessons learned from the growing DQC network.
To help states accelerate their progress, the Data Quality Campaign (DQC) examined four diverse, leading states. The goal was to better understand how these states went about designing their data systems, what it cost to create them, what immediate and tangible results were achieved, and what “lessons learned” could be shared with other states following in their footsteps. The four states were Florida, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
The Data Quality Campaign and the National Center for Educational Accountability (NCEA) conducted a survey in August 2006, with the support of The Broad Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, about state data systems to determine the number of states that have built the infrastructure to tap into the power of longitudinal data. Similar surveys were conducted by NCEA in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006. This website provides an overview of the findings of the survey in addition to a state-by-state analysis of the policy implications of each state's data system.
Although data can be used by school systems in myriad ways to promote systemwide success, this DQC brief focuses specifically on how stakeholders at all levels can support access to and use of a student’s academic history to adjust instruction to meet the student’s needs.
In response to state requests for information on FERPA, the managing partners of the DQC have worked with the law firm of Holland & Knight to analyze FERPA and how the new roles of SEAs (and their longitudinal data systems) in data collection and sharing can be aligned with FERPA. This issue analysis may serve as a guide to assist states as they build and use state longitudinal data systems in ways that comply with FERPA and fully protect the privacy rights of students and their parents. The DQC values student privacy and strongly supports the use of longitudinal data as an indispensable tool in the effort to improve school performance; this legal analysis concludes that instituting and using these state longitudinal data systems can be done in accordance with FERPA protection of student privacy.
The Data Quality Campaign conducted four site visits (Florida, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin) in order to document the common challenges and lesson learned as states design and build student-level longitudinal data systems. This report synthesizes the findings from these four visits.
This issue brief was produced for the June 13, 2006 DQC Quarterly Issue Meeting focused on aligning P-12 and postsecondary data systems and explores the past, present, and future of aligning these two, at times, disparate data systems.
This paper explains the ten essential elements and policy benefits of state longitudinal data.
This report presents the results of a new fifty-state inventory of state SUR capacity undertaken by NCHEMS. In addition to the topics of data element coverage and analytical capability addressed by the 2002 survey, the current inventory examines more closely how states are linking SUR data with other data sources and how they are using the resulting information.
Practical checklists, matrices, survey instruments, sample letters, and other tangible components that can help educational technology leaders at all levels in the policy and practice decision-making needed to build or support robust educational programs.
In addition to giving parents rights to inspect and challenge the contents of their children's education records, FERPA prohibits educational agencies and institutions that receive program funds from the U.S. Department of Education from disclosing students' education records or personally identifiable information about students contained in those records without written parental consent, unless the disclosure comes within one or more of a list of statutory exceptions. This legal analysis summarizes — (A) data collection and disclosure practices relevant to a state longitudinal data system that are clearly permissible under FERPA and (B) areas where issues remain as to what is permissible under FERPA. Holland & Knight LLP prepared this paper to address how a state longitudinal data system can align the principles of data use and comply with FERPA, with regard to student data at all levels of education, pre-kindergarten through postsecondary education.
To explore what might be done to create such an initiative, a meeting of academic researchers and individuals responsible for several state SURs was convened on July 25-26 2005 by the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS) with support from the Ford Foundation, the Lumina Foundation for Education, and the Spencer Foundation (see Appendix). The action agenda presented here resulted from that meeting.
An ECS/InfoSynthesis Resource Guide, October 2004
Information on public schools nationwide
A downloadable abstract of the three-year work each State is planning to complete along with the State’s original application to the grant program.
