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Concurrent Session XII Presentations
Friday, February 17, 2012
9:45 - 10:45
XII–A: The Feasibility of Consolidating the National Public Education Financial Survey (NPEFS) With the Survey of Local Government Finances: School Systems (F-33)
Stephen Cornman, National Center for Education Statistics
Terri Kennerly, U.S. Census Bureau
Su McCurdy and Janice Evans, Iowa Department of Education
- Recently, several states have requested that NCES consider consolidating the Common Core of Data's National Public Education Financial Survey (NPEFS), with the Survey of Local Government Finances: School Systems (F-33). NPEFS is an NCES data collection, a state-level survey that includes all revenues and expenditures for public education. The F-33 collects finance data on each school district and local education agency and is conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. The consolidation theoretically could reduce the reporting burden on state educational agencies (SEAs) and save the U.S. government the costs of conducting separate surveys. However, there are significant challenges inherent in consolidating or replacing NPEFS with the F-33 survey. The challenges include adding data items to the F-33 and expanding the F-33 to include state and federal education agencies to maintain the current NPEFS coverage. SEAs may incur significant costs to meet these challenges. This session discusses the feasibility of consolidating the two surveys, including the need for school finance data at the state and district level, capacity issues, the economic burden on respondents, possible benefits, challenges presented, methods to surmount those challenges, and alternative solutions.
XII–B: Initial Research Findings From Arkansas's Statewide Longitudinal Data System (SLDS): Using Standards-Based Research to Solve Real Education Problems
Jake Walker, Arkansas Research Center
Greg Nadeau, PCG Education
- The convergence of standards within NCES's Common Education Data Standards (CEDS) Version 2.0 elements and logical model provides a foundation for data-driven policies. The gap remains for well-documented conceptual models to link research with system design. This presentation provides a framework of key entities and relationships and a proposed syntax to parse policy questions into technical specifications. It presents outcomes using a standards-based approach from recent research completed by the Arkansas Research Center for stakeholders in Arkansas, including evaluation of Pre–K participation's impact on early K–12 performance, higher education remediation outcomes, and higher education graduates' employment and wage outcomes over time.
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(3.4 MB)
XII–C: Leading Without Reinventing the Wheel
Doug Jaffe, New York State Regents Research Fund
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New York State has been driving educational efficacy using data for years and has found that the value of these initiatives increases dramatically as data become more integrated and more broadly used. In an effort to spur innovation and lower data integration and operating costs, New York is leading the way in interoperability standards that leverage common data formats. Panelists address (1) enablement work around data, transport, and services standards, which make it possible to integrate work of others; (2) assessment definition work that allows sharing costs of high-quality assessments among other states; (3) learning resource meta data standards that make it possible to plug-in content that works best for students; and (4) shared technology and service initiatives that take advantage of solutions to technology problems others have solved.
XII–D: Data at Every Level: One State Education Agency's Story of Integrating Data and the Unanticipated Results
Emily Rang, Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction
- Washington State has worked diligently to reduce data collections across program areas within the state education agency. This presentation will share the story of data consolidation and the surprise discovered at the local level and provide real examples that identified opportunities for new attitudes at every level of education. See what went right, what went wrong, and what is being done.
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XII–E: The Data Culture: The Impact of Data Use on Instruction by School District Stakeholders
Mwarumba Mwavita, Oklahoma State University
Joe Kitchens and Kim Race, Western Heights Public Schools (Oklahoma)
- The objective of this presentation is to share how the data culture has impacted the district's stakeholders to focus on learning and teaching processes. To this end, individual students and cohort-based growth are presented. In addition, analytics showing teachers' impact on students over multiple years is presented. Finally, a discussion on how stakeholders used this data is shared.
XII–F: Alaska's Course Cross-Walk Project
Erik McCormick, Alaska Department of Education and Early Development
Steven King and Barbara Clements, ESP Solutions Group
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Standardized course codes are essential for tracking student performance, consistently communicating about teacher assignments, and improving instruction in the long run. In addition, they are extremely useful for standardizing information in student record exchanges and high school transcripts. Some states have a state course code system; however, even in those states, many districts have their own local course codes that they use for scheduling. Standard course codes provide more consistent information on the rigor and content of the courses taken by a student and help to ensure proper placement when a student transfers or applies to a postsecondary institution. The availability of course-level information at the state provides Alaska researchers greater capability for analyzing success patterns of secondary students. Individual student records with this information in the longitudinal data system will enable researchers to track student course taking over time. The Alaska Department of Education and Early Development (EED) has contracted with ESP Solutions Group to use their CourseWalk™ online application to develop a set of standard state course codes (SSCCs). These codes can be used by Alaska local education agencies to describe student course taking and to characterize education licenses and assignments. The districts' local course codes can be mapped to the Alaska course codes, which can then be mapped to national course codes to enable the use of national course codes to be shared across different lines when a student transfers or applies to attend school out of a district or state.
XII–G: Using Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) in a District: How You Can Get a Student Signed Up and Ready in All Your Systems Within Seconds
Vicente Paredes, SIF Association
James Yap, Ramapo Central School District (New York)
- What is the real return on investment (ROI) with Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF)? One of the major value propositions is the mantra of "enter data once—use it many times." This session will provide real-world examples of utilizing SIF-enabled applications and what it can mean to local education agency data administrators, IT leaders, support staff, teachers, and most importantly the learners themselves! Within seconds, all the local systems can be up and running to support the learner as soon as he or she enters the district's doors. This type of interoperability can also be replicated at the district to state level to provide seamless reporting and ID management.
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XII–H: DataFirst: A Tool on How to Use Data for Local Decisionmaking
Jim Hull, National School Boards Association, Center for Public Education
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The National School Boards Association's Center for Public Education developed DataFirst for governance training to better prepare school board members to use data more effectively in their policymaking. The training is comprised of a foundations module to educate board members on data presentation and analysis, along with two content modules dealing with teacher quality and preparing students for high school and beyond. This session provides an overview of the DataFirst data-driven decisionmaking process by demonstrating DataFirst.org, which was designed to educate not only school board members about proper data use but also the public.
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XII–I: Dismantling the Discipline Data Tower of Babel
Sonya Edwards and Justin Lane, California Department of Education
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California shares its recent experience in trying to develop its collection of discipline data to meet EDFacts reporting requirements (incidents, suspensions, and expulsions) that led it to the Tower of Babel. In this session, the presenters demonstrate the need to bring clarity to discipline data collection and reporting requirements. The presenters show how the Common Education Data Standards (CEDS) can be a useful reference point and highlight how it falls short of what education data stakeholders need. There is an interactive exercise with audience participation that some attendees may find useful when gathering data requirements. Ultimately, California's goal is to arrive at clear, consistent terminology and guidance for good, quality data.
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