IV–A

The Exceptional Children Division (EC) of North Carolina’s Department of Public Instruction discussed how the state’s authoritative source for EC data—the Comprehensive Exceptional Children Accountability System (CECAS)—assists North Carolina in meeting the criteria of its State Performance Plan (SPP), required under Part B of the 2004 IDEA Reauthorization Act. An overview of the original application, as well as newly released and impending features was highlighted. Offered to local education agencies (LEAs), charter schools, and state-operated programs, this web-based system allows EC personnel to complete the entire Individual Education Program process using online forms, eliminating paper files completely in some LEAs.

IV–B

This presentation focused on establishing a Quality Rating Improvement System for child care in the state of Washington, the challenges in creating an Early Learning Information System, and the efforts in Washington State to map all data around children. The presentation also discussed creating links from Early Learning environments into K12.

IV–C

The goal of this session was to demonstrate how teacher and student technology proficiency data can be collected and compared over time comparing pre and post dates; how assessments can be customized to the needs of districts; how EdTechProfile can facilitate the convergence of data from various sources (California School Technology Survey, EDEN, Voucher Program, 8th Grade Technology Literacy) into aggregated easy-to-read reports. These reports can be used for technology planning and to track proficiency levels over time.

IV–D

Final Guidance on Maintaining, Collecting, and Reporting Racial and Ethnic Data to the U.S. Department of Education was published on October 19, 2007. The guidance provides for the collection and reporting of racial and ethnic data on students, teachers, and education staff. These changes are necessary in order to implement the Office of Management and Budget's 1997 Standards for Maintaining, Collecting, and Presenting Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity. The final guidance applies to the collection of individual-level data and to the reporting of aggregate racial and ethnic data to the U.S. Department of Education by educational institutions and other recipients of grants and contracts. This presentation focused on how some states are proceeding to implement this guidance in their education information systems.

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• Discussion of the Implementation of the Final Guidance on Collecting and Reporting Racial and Ethnic Data (834 KB)

IV–E

This session covered how states (or districts) can implement data governance. The first phase of the Tennessee Department of Education’s (TNDOE) Longitudinal Data System grant focused on creating a data management process. Discussion of TNDOE’s experience included successful strategies, benefits to TNDOE, and lessons learned. The session focused particularly on the roles of data management (chief information officer, data quality director, data stewards, database administrators, business analysts, data management committee, data policy committee, IT advisory board, etc.). Role descriptions and a role matrix table were provided to attendees.

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• Implementing Data Governance as the Foundation of a Longitudinal Data
  System (299 KB)

IV–F

The American Community Survey (ACS) provides an important source of limited English proficient (LEP) data for educational research. Early research based on 2003–04 ACS data suggested that annual state-level LEP estimates were volatile, and therefore cautioned education administrators about using them for programs like Title III. However, the ACS sample was not fully implemented until 2005, so early research based on 2003–04 data may not be representative of current ACS state-level LEP estimates. This presentation discussed ACS state-level LEP estimates based on fully implemented samples from 2005–06 and compared the volatility and reliability of these estimates relative to 2003-04.

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• State-Level Limited English Proficiency Estimates From the American Community Survey (0.99 MB)

IV–G

The Council of Chief State School Officers launched the State Education Data Center (SEDC) in October 2007 with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Through the SEDC, state education data are available at the school, district, and state levels on a public access website—SchoolDataDirect.org. In addition, a download feature provides free access to the data by education administrators and researchers. Presenters provided an update on the work of the SEDC, and engaged participants in a discussion on how the SEDC can better serve state and local education agencies.

Download Zipped PowerPoint Presentations:

• CCSSO's State Education Data Center and SchoolDataDirect.org (3.20 MB)

IV–H

Working with the vendors and districts in designing and implementing an interoperable solution is critical to success. We explored the work done by the Oklahoma State Department of Education’s Wave project team to be proactive, by partnering with the Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) Association to pilot the Oklahoma SIF Profile. We shared the methodology developed to design, communicate, test and certify SIF agents to meet the State’s needs for vertical reporting using SIF and how other states can to.