The conversation about education and workforce data moves fast: new reports, new discussions, new debates. But the issues that determine whether data actually improves people’s lives don’t change nearly as often as the headlines suggest. Back to Basics is DQC’s ongoing series on the fundamentals: the data policies, practices, and principles that have always mattered—and still do. Each post steps back from the moment to explain what’s really at stake—and why getting it right is worth the sustained effort. This post is the fourth installment of Back to Basics; read the other posts in this series here.
Data is a people issue, not an IT project. The Date Quality Campaign has been making that case for 20 years, since a time when states collected education data for federal reporting that rarely reached the families and educators who needed it.
For a long stretch, this work was just about building the systems. States were collecting data to satisfy federal reporting requirements, but they had little shared vocabulary for talking about what else it could do. The 10 Essential Elements of Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems, published by DQC in 2005 following No Child Left Behind, laid out the data a state system needed in order to answer policymakers’ questions, recasting these systems as a reflection of state education priorities rather than an infrastructure build focused only on compliance. The 10 State Actions to Ensure Effective Data Use followed in 2009 with what states had to do to put that data to work for people. Together, these roadmaps changed the way policymakers thought about the power of these data systems—from tools only used for compliance, to tools that could support people in their education pathways.
While states were already building these systems, federal investments through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 created new funding streams, which added to state capacity. That money pulled the conversation beyond state agency officials to governors and state legislatures, while the federal statewide longitudinal data system (SLDS) grant program and the Workforce Data Quality Initiative helped states construct and link their systems in service of meeting state policy goals.
In 2005, no state had all 10 Essential Elements in place; by 2011, following these investments, 36 states did, and by 2014, the final year states were surveyed on the 10 State Actions, Arkansas, Delaware, and Kentucky had implemented all of them. As an example of what these investments in states’ SLDSs can do, the number of states publishing high school feedback reports, which show district and school leaders what happens to graduates after they leave, grew from 12 to 41.
Building the systems was the straightforward part. States were investing in data, but they weren’t always demonstrating its value for informing and improving education, or earning the public’s trust. Parents and the public pushed back, worried about how much information was being collected about their children and who had access to it. Just between 2013 to 2016, 36 states passed 74 student data privacy laws. While policies safeguarding student information are essential, the concern about collecting student data slowed the work of improving state data systems. This moment left state leaders with a lesson that has held ever since: people won’t use data they don’t trust, which is why centering privacy is part of doing this work well.
Even as parents and policymakers focus on keeping data secure, people want access to data. In a national poll of superintendents, 98 percent of superintendents said better data access would make them more confident making decisions for their districts, and 80 percent of high school students said the same about the path they would take after graduation.
Despite the demand for data, even the best-designed systems can leave their intended users frustrated: a state legislator with an urgent question experiences a long wait time for evidence, a researcher goes through a cumbersome process to earn access to the information they need, and too few states offer a public dashboard where families and business leaders can find P–20W information that helps them understand education and workforce pathways in their state.
This is why access is the work right now. The point is the person on the other end of the data—someone deciding what comes after high school, or whether a credential is worth the tuition. The systems exist now, and states are using them, so what stands between those people and an informed decision is access.
That’s why access was the first topic in this series, and why Grace, who could see her options instead of guessing at them, turns up in everything we publish. DQC’s 2023 release, with nearly 50 partners, outlines a vision for state data systems built on a single commitment: that access to data should not be a barrier to supporting individuals as they navigate their journeys through education into the workforce. States spent 20 years building the data systems. The urgent work is putting this information into the hands of the people who need it.
