Survey Finds States Can Collect Data – But Can They Use It?

Today, the Data Quality Campaign (DQC) released its definitive annual report examining states’ ability to collect, store, and use education data, and things are looking up. According to the Data for Action 2013 report, for the first time, two states—Arkansas and Delaware—met all 10 of the DQC’s components for good data practices.

Virtually all states (48) centrally store their K-12 data, and 46 publish reports that use longitudinal data designed for stakeholders’ use in improving the education system. That’s a big step up from just two years ago, when only 36 states were producing those reports.

What’s more, data systems are growing – in some ways, at least. Forty-three states match their K-12 and early childhood educational data annually. That’s a key point, given how little we know about pre-K and other early learning programs nationally and in the states. In fact, improving data connections would be a requirement of the new pre-K bills introduced in Congress last week; states would be required either to have or to develop the capacity to track student data from early education programs into the K-12 system. One indicator that is very important to a growing number of policymakers is understanding what taxpayers’ pre-K dollars are buying. [Interestingly, last year, 46 states had the capacity to link early learning and K-12 student data – so it would seem some states have actually regressed on that point.]

On the other end of the continuum, 44 states could link their K-12 and postsecondary data, but just only 19 link K-12 to workforce data (and 24 link postsecondary data to workforce data) like state unemployment insurance databases. There’s a growing interest in developing these data linkages, in large part because a federal law prohibits the Department of Education from collecting de-identified, student-level college data – data that could be linked to other federal databases to study the outcomes of graduates and non-completers in the workforce. The Department plans to release data on earnings for some graduates early next year, but those figures are expected to be incomplete and imperfect.

Perhaps the most interesting point, though, relates to how states are using the data they collect. Only 12 states meet all five of the components DQC lays out for teachers to be able to access and use data. While those aspects of data use are pretty basic, many states are still falling behind:

Only 12 states meet all five DQC components for teachers to access and use data.

• Teachers and leaders are trained to use data to inform their teaching in the classroom and their schoolwide policies (41 states have achieved this goal);
• Teachers and leaders are trained in understanding and using specific reports (43 states);
• The state actively trains educators in the use of those reports (42 states);
• Data literacy is a requirement for teacher certification or licensure, or data literacy training is required for state teacher preparation program approval (29 states); and
• Teacher performance data are reported back to the state’s teacher preparation programs at least once a year (17 states).

Even among the states that meet some of DQC’s data use components, there are few shining stars. Though 35 states provide teachers with access to their students’ longitudinal data, just five stood out as exemplars who are truly advanced in that skill. And only six stood out for their development of teacher and leader licensure policies that include data literacy elements.

For all the huge quantities of data required by No Child Left Behind and SLDS, disturbingly few teachers know how to use the data.

As the New America Foundation’s Education Policy Program wrote in a report published earlier this year, for all the huge quantities of data required by No Child Left Behind and statewide longitudinal data systems, disturbingly few teachers know how to use the data. In Promoting Data in the Classroom: Innovative State Models and Missed Opportunities, we explored two states that are doing particularly exceptional work in improving teachers’ data use. This year one of those states, Delaware, became one of only two states ever to meet all 10 “state actions” laid out by the DQC survey.

The overall results of the Data Quality Campaign survey are encouraging. But it’s clear that states still have a long way to go. States have a lot of data needs – the ability to connect across programs; the capacity to use the data for statewide, system-wide, and schoolwide policies; and the ability to provide data back to key organizations, like the performance of classroom teachers to teacher preparation programs and postsecondary data to high schools. The gold standard of data use, though, would be to utilize those metrics in the classroom, so that teachers can improve and better target their instruction, matching individual students’ needs. States are on their way, but there is still a long road ahead.