The Nebraska Statewide Workforce & Educational Reporting System (NSWERS) is a state longitudinal data system (SLDS) that coordinates data sharing, processing, and dissemination efforts across the Nebraska public school systems, Nebraska community colleges, the University of Nebraska system, the Nebraska Department of Labor, and other statewide…

Emerging practices in both K-12 and higher education hold great promise in the establishment of equity frameworks. The use of finely disaggregated data, the effort to track additional student groups, and related work, all help to establish policies and tools to monitor the impact of reform efforts to address inequities. State programs and…

Research shows that chronic absenteeism can affect academic performance in later grades and is a key early warning sign that a student is more likely to drop out of high school. Several states enacted legislation to address this issue, and many states are currently discussing the utility of chronic absenteeism as an indicator of school quality or…

This letter is submitted to comment on the U.S. Department of Education's (ED) proposed revisions to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act's (ARRA) State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (SFSF), as published in the September 23, 2011, Federal Register. Overall, the Data Quality Campaign believes the proposed changes strike a sensible balance: they…

In 2007, Michigan undertook a bold mission: to retrain tens of thousands of adults to qualify for jobs in emerging and expanding sectors of the economy. The state's proposal to jobless, dislocated, and low-income residents was simple but appealing: enroll in up to two years of postsecondary education, and Michigan would cover up to $5,000 in…

Response to intervention (RTI) arose, in part, from the limited success of the pre-referral process, an approach advocated in the 1980s and 1990s, and accurately measuring the discrepancy between aptitude and achievement in young children. Reflecting these concerns, when the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was reauthorized in…

U.S. teacher educators are faced with serious challenges to demonstrate the quality of the graduates they prepare. These challenges are expressed in the country's fixation on accountability and testing. We are witnessing the growth of standardized tests and alternative routes to certification as panaceas intended to solve the teacher shortage…

Recommendations resulting from the Council of Chief State School Officers' Education Data Improvement Project are summarized. This joint effort by the states and Federal government attempts to improve the quality and timeliness of data collected, analyzed, and reported by the United States Department of Education's Center for Statistics. The goals…

This chapter examines lessons learned by states that are using student unit record (SUR) data to improve outcomes for community college students and recommends steps states can take to strengthen their use of SUR databases to benefit students and communities. (Contains 1 exhibit.)

The National Education Statistical Agenda Committee of the National Forum on Education Statistics established a Task Force in 1995 to study how a state or local education agency might best collect and report data on the incidence of crime, violence, and disciplinary behavior. The Task Force, which consisted of a core group of data providers from…

In March 1989, the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory entered into a contract with the Nevada Department of Education to develop this evaluation design for the Nevada Proficiency Examination (NPE) Program. The NPE program, mandated by state legislation, requires each school district to administer examinations in all public schools to…

Nearly all the states produce one or more accountability or indicator reports containing data reported at one or more levels of the education system as well as data from other sources. To inform discussion about what data are useful and appropriate to report, comparisons were made of state accountability and indicator reports. A list of 74…

Six papers discuss the Louisiana School Effectiveness and Assistance Pilot (SEAP) program, an ongoing 3-year research project associated with a legislatively mandated school and district accountability program. In three phases, the project joins school indicators, school effectiveness, and school improvement initiatives. The following papers are…

This report contributes to the comprehensive evaluation of the Common Core of Data (CCD) program by providing an analysis of CCD definitions in order to identify potential classification problems. At the time of the evaluation, the CCD program consisted of four surveys. The focus of this evaluation is on the "Public Elementary/Secondary…

Two handbooks that serve as a basis for each state's financial data reporting system for the National Center for Education Statistics are compared as part of the Education Data Improvement Project of the Council of Chief State School Officers. The Project's goal is to improve the quality of data submitted to the common core of data of the Center.…