“Federal investments initially made state longitudinal data systems possible—but the fact that states have built their own systems shouldn’t mean that the federal investment disappears,” said Paige Kowalski, executive vice president of the Data Quality Campaign. “The reality is that states are investing in these systems on their own because they see value in them, but opportunities to build on these systems are hard to justify in a cash-strapped state budget. It’s important to have a conversation about what the federal dollars are being used for, and removing the opportunity to use those dollars to let states innovative around the use of education data does not benefit students.”
In an Education Week article by Sarah D. Sparks, DQC Executive Vice President Paige Kowalski comments on the Trump Administration’s proposed fiscal 2021 budget which proposes zeroing out the statewide longitudinal data system grants.
