4 Data Priorities That States Can Act on This Year

This past year, more states than ever collected student assessment results, linked them from pre-K  to workforce systems, and shared them with colleges of education.

Thirty-six states meet all 10 of the Data Quality Campaign's Elements of Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems, while all but one state has at least eight elements or more.

And amendments to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) have cleared up who can access data for what purposes and have added provisions to protect student privacy.

"It clarifies that there absolutely is a state role in collecting and using this longitudinal data to improve student achievement," said Aimee Guidera, executive director of the campaign. "And the question now is not if and can we, it's how."

With this clarification, states can tap into their rich collections of data and make sure they do everything they can to protect privacy. This year, they can move forward with four actions that the campaign says will give educators the information they need to help their students succeed.
 

1. Identify critical policy questions to guide data efforts

States need to figure out what questions to ask. Information is valuable if people need it, Guidera said. Conversely, if you give people data they don't need, it won't be useful. You find out what they need by asking questions, including the following:

• What do you need to do your job?
• What format do you need it in?
• When do you need it?

To make decisions and act on data, we need to start by asking why we're collecting information and what people need it for, Guidera said. Those answers need to drive the decisions.
 

2. Authorize P-20/workforce data governance bodies to make decisions

These data governance bodies currently have more of an advisory role and don't have authority to make decisions around data. But critical policy questions require information from multiple places and decisions across federal agencies. 

"If there's not somebody that has the ability to make that decision, it's going to get mired in issues of turf, it's going to be mired in issues of trust, it's going to get bogged down in bureaucracy," Guidera said.

Either the state legislature or the governor's office can authorize the body to meet and require a report every year.

3. Provide feedback to colleges of education on how their teachers do

Currently only six states share feedback on how teachers are doing in their jobs with the colleges of education that prepared them. Most of these colleges of education don't receive specific feedback on how their teachers are doing, unlike other industries in the nation.

"We haven't had that feedback loop happening because we haven't had the data to inform that feedback," Guidera said. "And so we think by making this a game-changing priority that we will see marked changes in how schools of education use information and use this data on how well their teachers are doing to impact student achievement."

4. Evaluate whether high school feedback reports meet district needs

Unlike higher education reports, 39 states provide high school feedback reports on how students do in college and the workforce. But that doesn't mean they give school districts the information they need.

"High school and postsecondary have been hearing for generations the very nonspecific feedback of, 'You're sending us kids who aren't prepared, 'They can't hold down a job,' or, 'They need remedial education,'" Guidera said. "And yet the K-12 system has never really had explicit, specific feedback."

Several years ago, Kentucky realized that few people looked at the spreadsheet reports it sent out.  Over the past few years, the commonwealth has asked people what they needed to see and tailored them to their needs.

Last year, the state had higher enrollments in postsecondary institutions and lower numbers of remediation. Guidera said she would like to believe that part of the change is due to richer feedback reports.

We need to empower people with information and make sure they know what to do with it and how to access it, Guidera said.

"We can't keep doing what we've been doing, which is making decisions by anecdote and hunch, and there's no reason that we have to keep doing it that way when we now have so much rich information at our fingertips."