By John Pulley
Aimee Guidera is executive director of the Data Quality Campaign (DQC), established in late 2005 as “a national, collaborative effort to encourage and support state policymakers to improve the availability and use of high-quality education data to improve student achievement.”
To that end, DQC developed and encouraged states to adopt 10 essential elements of longitudinal data systems. More recently, DQ C has shifted its focus toward helping states’ key stakeholders to actually use the data to help students succeed.
We recently caught up with Guidera.
Lumina: First, what is longitudinal education data, and why is there so much interest in it right now?
Guidera: It’s data that can follow an individual student over time. It’s a powerful tool because it allows us to tailor the educational experience to individual kids. It allows us to tap into different kinds of analyses and to use that rich information for continuous improvement.
L: What do you mean by tailored education?
G: It’s when we provide information in a timely way and an actionable way back to a student, a parent or a teacher to tweak what is happening in real time. For example, if a teacher gives an assessment on Friday about fractions and gets back information within an hour that 89 percent of the kids aren’t grasping fractions, that teacher can look across the classroom and ask: ‘How do I go back and teach it better?’ In an earlier era, there was potential that we wouldn’t know for a year that kids hadn’t mastered fractions.
Another example is early-warning indicator systems. We know from years of research that certain indicators show a child is at risk of dropping out or not graduating. (With good data systems), we can identify those factors and immediately notify decision makers to put in place proven interventions. That is powerful.
L: What about the longitudinal aspect of these data systems?
G: It allows us to have measures of accountability and student achievement and academic growth models, instead of just a snapshot. With a longitudinal data system, you can ask: ‘What did the kid know last week or last year versus what he knows now, and is that a rate of growth for success?’
It’s the same with teachers. When you link student performance and teacher information systems, you get a much richer indicator of teacher effectiveness and their influence on the student growth. It allows you to do richer research and to identify programs or interventions or curricula that are worthy of more study. It’s using data not as a hammer, but as a flashlight—a rich spotlight.
L: What is the ultimate goal?
G: The focus now is the shift from collecting richer information to changing the culture and making sure that that the information is used. We must ensure that all stakeholders have appropriate access to data in a format they understand, and that we build a capacity for decision makers and stakeholders to know how to use the information. It’s not enough to build data systems. You have to focus on the harder steps, meaning: ‘How do we change our activities and human behavior?’
We need to treat stakeholders as customers. If we want to transform education into a data-driven, student-centric industry, we have to build data systems to answer the right questions. If you don’t connect the policy and data conversations, you waste a lot of time, energy, money and goodwill.
L: What are the consequences of inadequate data?
G: People will continue to make decisions on hunches and anecdotes, and that’s how we’ve made decisions since the beginning of time. Without good reliable rich data, our decision making is hindered.
L: What is impeding the development of good data collection? Technology? Politics?
G: The data collection is getting better and better. Every state is on schedule to have all 10 essential elements in the next two years. The real challenge comes with ensuring access and use of the information.
One challenge is people saying ‘This is the way we’ve always done it.’ Another is fear and mistrust of data. In the past, educators have been fearful of data because it was used to hold them accountable for things they couldn’t control. We also need to be very vigilant about security of these systems, to make sure that security of personally identifiable information is a priority, while at the same time providing appropriate access to people who need and have a right to look at data.
L: These systems aren’t inexpensive. How do we pay for them?
G: Right now the federal government is providing a lot of support to states to build and expand data system, but states need to build into their annual budgets funding for data systems. Data systems always will need to be expanded and upgraded. It’s maintenance of the infrastructure, just like appropriations for improving roads.
John Pulley, a former staff writer for the Chronicle of Higher Education, is a freelance education writer based in Arlington, Va.
