WASHINGTON (November 1, 2016) – The success of the next president’s education priorities will extensively rely on the effective use of data to improve student achievement. Any of the next administration’s goals, including college affordability, ensuring educational equity, reducing costly administrative burden, and building public trust in our schools, will depend on making useful and secure data available to educators, families, and policymakers.
The Data Quality Campaign has released five recommendations with detailed associated guidance on how to ensure that members of the education community have role-appropriate access to the quality information needed to support every student. Data should be used as a flashlight to shine a light on what is working to fuel continuous improvement, not as a hammer of compliance and solely for accountability.
“Thanks to strategic investments and smart policies, schools, families, and citizens across the nation now have a more robust and useful picture of student learning. Now is the time to act: The next president must seize this opportunity to truly make data work for student achievement,” said Aimee Rogstad Guidera, president and CEO of the Data Quality Campaign.
Every state has a longitudinal education data system, made possible by federal resources over the last decade, and the next administration must help states leverage this infrastructure to bring about real change and improvement for children. The incoming presidential administration and federal government have a vital role in framing the nation’s education goals, and it’s imperative that the president uses his or her bully pulpit to help make the effective use of education data a national priority and to celebrate the states that are effectively using data and improving transparency.
The DQC recommends the following critical actions:
- Ensure all families have access to their own child’s data so they can be an effective partner in, and advocate for, their child’s learning.
- Increase transparency and public accountability around our schools’ progress and outcomes.
- Provide teachers with the knowledge, access, and tools they need to use education data in service of student learning and help parents understand the value of student information.
- Reduce data collection burden and duplication, and build trust around the effective, ethical use and protection of data.
- Support the development of infrastructure necessary to provide timely, actionable information to families, teachers, and the public.
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About the Data Quality Campaign:
The Data Quality Campaign is a nonprofit policy and advocacy organization leading the effort to bring every part of the education community together to empower educators, families, and policymakers with quality information to make decisions that ensure students excel. For more information, go to dataqualitycampaign.org and follow us on Facebook and Twitter (@EdDataCampaign).
