Consistent federal investments have been a critical component of supporting states to build statewide longitudinal data systems (SLDSs) that provide the backbone for timely, informed decisionmaking by individuals and policymakers alike. But those investments are currently siloed, creating barriers that impact how states can evolve and modernize their data systems. Those barriers can make it more challenging for state leaders to respond to the changing education and workforce needs of policymakers, students, workers, and employers.
The Reimagining Education and Skills through Unified Longitudinal Talent Systems (RESULTS) Act seeks to break down those silos. Introduced by Senators Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE) and Roger Marshall (R-KS), the RESULTS Act modernizes the two primary federal vehicles for helping states build connected, individual-level, and longitudinal P–20W data systems: the SLDS grant program and the Workforce Data Quality Initiative (WDQI). Specifically, the RESULTS Act would:
- Consolidate the SLDS and WDQI grant programs, so that states receive federal resources in a manner that mirrors the connected way state data systems work;
- Modernize the new grant program to reflect the reality of current state data systems, which no longer silo data but rather connect early childhood, K–12, postsecondary, and workforce data;
- Provide states with more flexibility by extending eligibility beyond the state education agency to a governor or governor’s designee, such as the state data governance entity or another state agency;
- Require formalized cross-agency governance of the data system seeking funding to ensure funds are used in a thoughtful, coordinated, and secure manner;
- Provide support and funding for capacity positions such as chief data, evaluation, and privacy officers; and
- Expand access, in a limited manner, to the National Directory of New Hires, a wage and employment data source states have long needed better access to for the performance reporting they are already required to do.
The RESULTS Act’s approach to modernizing federal funding for state data comes at just the right time. States are just beginning to implement the new Workforce Pell grant, standing up systems to identify which short-term programs lead to high-wage, high-skill, in-demand careers. As we at the Data Quality Campaign (DQC) have written before, the hardest part of that work is not collecting data—it is aligning data that already exists across systems but is governed by different agencies and rules. And while the more flexible resources offered by the RESULTS Act matter, the bill’s requirement that states establish formal data governance is critical. States can have all the data pipes in the world and still fail to answer a basic question about program quality if nobody has the mandate to connect data or there is no agreement on what is being done with it once connected.
The RESULTS Act brings a quieter benefit as well. An SLDS containing P–20W data can become the backbone infrastructure states use to meet reporting and accountability requirements across federal education and workforce programs. This connectivity can eliminate duplicative reporting and sharpen the signal on which programs deliver impact for students and workers.
Endorsed by DQC as well as Advance CTE, the Alliance for Learning Innovation, America Forward, the Bipartisan Policy Center, Credential Engine, the National Association of Workforce Boards, and Results for America, the RESULTS Act joins a growing list of bipartisan efforts to improve the federal state data ecosystem. Students don’t experience their lives in silos, so state data systems shouldn’t either. The RESULTS Act provides a modern vision for federal investment that will offer states the flexibility to combine federal funds with their own resources in ways that meet today’s needs.
