Last year, the Data Quality Campaign (DQC) released a vision that aims to support leaders in developing and maintaining state data systems that meet people’s data access needs along the early childhood to workforce pathway, especially where access to data from multiple systems is necessary to make informed decisions. To support this vision, DQC offered federal recommendations that could support and incentivize the modernization of state data systems through increased funding, better technical assistance, and clarified guidance around data privacy and data sharing practices.
In recent months, DQC has been pleased to see that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), US Department of Education (ED), and White House announced actions aligned with DQC’s data access and use recommendations. Here’s a quick look at three of those recent efforts:
OMB’s updated Uniform Grants Guidance provides states and local governments with the security to use federal program funds to strengthen integrated data infrastructure, analytics, and evaluation capacity. OMB’s Uniform Grants Guidance sets administration policies for federal grants to state and local governments. These revisions encourage state and local governments to invest federal funds in data infrastructure and evidence-building by clearly stating that all grants may be used, in part, to support those activities, including integrated data systems, analytical capacity, and program evaluation. In the past, grantees, federal program staff, and auditors often presumed that grant funds could not be used for data and evaluation because there was no explicit permission from the federal government to use them in that manner—even when potential data investments were in support of overall grant objectives, such as improving education and workforce outcomes for individuals.
ED’s final revisions of the Education Department General Administrative Regulations (EDGAR) provide leaders, educators, researchers, and the public with more comprehensive and easily accessible education research to inform impactful policies for students. EDGAR governs all of ED’s federal grants awarded to state education agencies, local school districts, and charters including state-administered programs. The revisions to EDGAR encourage the use of data in the grant-making process to, in part, assess a proposal’s use of reliable administrative data to measure its progress and inform continuous improvement. This addition will help elicit grant proposals that are more data and evidence-informed, which are more likely to result in positive outcomes for students. The revisions also improve public access to data by requiring grantees to make any final evaluation reports or peer-reviewed scholarly publications publicly available through the Education Resource Information Center (ERIC).
The Biden administration announced multiple data initiatives to increase K–12 student achievement and curb chronic absenteeism. These initiatives:
- Call on governors and state education leaders to create statewide student data systems that enable educators to access real-time school-level data, parents and families to access real-time information about their child’s attendance, and the public to access up-to-date attendance rates; and
- Recommend that states adopt early warning systems (EWS) to help identify and address root causes of chronic absenteeism. With quick access to data and systems in place to alert parents, families, educators, and school leaders in a timely fashion, states can effectively develop and implement policies that better support students before they fall too far behind academically. To support states in their efforts to create and implement these kinds of data systems, ED plans to issue a resource highlighting state approaches to addressing chronic absenteeism and explains how to use federal funding for these efforts. For more on the impact of EWS, see DQC’s resource on on-track indicators.
Data access, use, and governance are the common threads that can help ensure leaders, individuals, and communities are equipped with the data they need to make informed decisions about education and workforce pathways. Efforts from federal leaders to provide guidance, clarity, and incentives for data modernization efforts is a good first step in supporting state efforts to undertake much-needed improvements in their data systems—ultimately making data more accessible and useful to individuals, the public, and policymakers alike. DQC looks forward to following the progress of these efforts and remains hopeful that they are just the beginning of a sustained intergovernmental effort to democratize data.
