What is the Common Core of Data?
Every year, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) releases nonfiscal data files from the Common Core of Data (CCD), one of the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED’s) primary resources on public elementary and secondary school districts, schools, and students. CCD nonfiscal data are made available to the public as data files, as well as in user-friendly data tools, and include the district and school directory (location, operational status, and grades offered) as well as data on student membership (by grade, sex, and race/ethnicity), full-time equivalent staff and teachers, and the number of students eligible for the National School Lunch Program (NSLP).
Why is CCD so important?
The CCD is a trusted data source used by ED stakeholders, researchers, and the public. Timely release of high-quality, accurate CCD data is critical not only to these stakeholders but also to ED’s commitment to providing high-quality data products.
CCD data are now released within months of submission by states!
Over the past several years, NCES made process improvements to the collection and dissemination of CCD data (described below) that allow NCES to release the CCD data more quickly than ever before. As a result of these changes, the school year (SY) 2023-24 CCD data files will be available to the public less than 4 months after the July 2024 submission due date.
In contrast, the SY 2016-17 CCD data files were due in May 2017 and released January 2019 (a full 20 months later).
What has NCES done to release HIGH-QUALITY CCD nonfiscal data so quickly?
NCES modernized the CCD nonfiscal data quality (DQ) review and file production process in two phases:
Phase 1: Modernized CCD DQ review and file production. Defined the DQ standard through business rules, held state data providers to the defined DQ standard, developed a system to provide DQ feedback to states within a few days of submission, and improved the public file format.
This CCD data quality system developed in Phase 1 served as a sandbox for the broader EDFacts modernization project, called EDPass. EDPass is a centralized data submission system used by ED to standardize data submissions across ED offices.
Phase 2: Full modernization of data submissions with EDPass. NCES manages the EDPass data submission tool for use by ED stakeholders including NCES, the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE), and the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP). The new submission tool, rolled out with the SY 2022-23 collection cycle, eliminated the time-consuming post-submission DQ process by running DQ checks at upload and requiring states to address all data quality issues prior to data submission. Critical components of this successful implementation included:
- Clear message from ED that high-quality data are expected at the due date
- NCES communicated the change in the submission process to state CCD Coordinators 2 years in advance
- Due dates were shifted to accommodate pre-submission DQ checks and to give states more time to get accustomed to the new process
- ED set due dates and held states accountable for the quality of the data; poor- quality data were suppressed and late data submissions were not included in data releases
- Investments in people and technology
- NCES’s new EDPass submission system is user-friendly
- NCES CCD staff and contractors increased direct support to states during data collection through well-attended office hour sessions
- Improved data quality process
- NCES published the full catalog of standardized business rules that align with data file specifications
- States receive data quality results within minutes of a file upload
- EDPass system does not allow states to submit any uploaded data files until all identified DQ issues are addressed
- Enhanced DQ reports
- All DQ results are available for ED stakeholder use immediately after the collection due date
- Data notes that accompany file releases provide state explanations for identified DQ issues and are built directly from state comments provided during data submission
- State buy-in
- State data submitters contributed feedback on the new system and processes during development
- States made systematic internal data governance improvements in response to EDPass modernization and the improved data quality process
Conclusions
As demonstrated by the SY 2023-24 CCD data release, ED’s bold investment in EDPass technology and end-to-end process changes allow for the release of high-quality, consistent data products more quickly than ever. The benefits from this investment, however, reach beyond data products, resulting in significant burden reductions both for states and for ED program offices that use the data. EDPass modernization also supports compliance with the Information Quality Act, the ED-wide Data Strategy effort to improve data access and advance the strategic use of data and, more broadly, ED’s efforts to comply with the November 2023 Office of Inspector General Management Challenges report.
Finally, while the gains from the EDPass modernization are illustrated in this blog through the SY 2023-24 CCD nonfiscal data release, this modernization impacts ALL data collected through the EDFacts submission system and will enable earlier release of high-quality data by other program offices, including OESE through ED Data Express and OSEP through ED’s Open Data Platform.