THE STATE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT / THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK / ALBANY, NY 12234

 

TO:	The Honorable the Members of the Board of Regents
FROM:	Theresa E. Savo
COMMITTEE:	Full Board
TITLE OF ITEM:	Statewide Student Data System
DATE OF SUBMISSION:	June 4, 2004
PROPOSED HANDLING:	Discussion
RATIONALE FOR ITEM:	Support for Regents Policy Implementation
STRATEGIC GOAL:	Goals 1, 2, 4 and 5
AUTHORIZATION:

 

SUMMARY:

 

The State Education Department is building a statewide student data repository system that collects individual student data from local school districts, manages the data at a regional level and provides for collection of the appropriate individual student data at the State level for State reporting and analysis.  This data management system will:

 

·        Inform policy development related to programs, curriculum and instruction, and resource allocation at the federal, State, and local levels.

·        Provide the necessary data for analysis and State and federal accountability.

·        Increase the capacity of the Department and school districts to examine the relationships among resource, demographic, and student performance measures.

·        Track students longitudinally to better determine the percentage of students who complete high school.

·        Eliminate redundant data collection by integrating current Department student data collection systems.

 

A statewide system will provide a uniform and efficient method for school districts to meet State reporting requirements. This will become imperative when standardized assessments in grades 3-8 are instituted in 2005-06, as required by No Child Left Behind (NCLB). The system is designed to provide a consistent and widely understood approach for collecting, storing, analyzing and using data about students, provide basic data analysis tools to local educational agencies, and reduce the local burden of data collection. Such a system will give teachers and administrators access to analyses of assessment results based upon individual student data over time.

Background

To meet identified data needs, over the last eight years, the Department has begun collecting individual student records on students in grades in which State assessments are administered. In the 1997-98 school year, the Department began electronic collection of individual student records at the elementary and middle levels through the Local Education Agency Program (LEAP) data collection system. The records include data on race/ethnicity, disability status, gender, income status, English proficiency, and migrant status. LEAP annually collects data on approximately 600,000 students in grades 4, 5 and 8 and, beginning in 2003-04, on limited English proficient students in grades K-8.

 

Beginning with the 2001-02 school year, the Department implemented the System for Tracking Education Progress (STEP) to collect unit record data for students in grades 9-12. STEP collects demographic and program participation data, State assessment scores, dropout and graduation data.  STEP annually collects data on approximately one million students.

Through the LEAP and STEP systems, the Department has records for all students in grades 4, 5, and 8 beginning with the 1998-1999 school year and all students in grades 9-12 beginning with the 2001-02 school year. These records allow the Department to meet the requirements of the State and federal accountability systems, including the aggregation of data by race/ethnicity, disability status, English proficiency, and income status. The STEP data provide substantially more accurate information than the previous paper reporting systems on the success of students in meeting the graduation requirements and the number of students who drop out. The use of a statewide unique student identifier in the planned statewide data system will further improve the accuracy of these statistics by allowing students who transfer among districts to be followed longitudinally.  Also, these statewide unique identifiers will allow us to ensure that schools provide records for all enrolled students and that no child goes uncounted.

 

Concurrent with the work at the Department outlined above, 7 of the 12 Regional Information Centers (RICs) located at BOCES have implemented data repositories (called ‘data warehouses’) that collect individual student data.  These repositories enhance the ability of school districts to meet local district data analysis needs, and improve the ability of the districts to meet State data collection requirements specified in the LEAP and STEP systems.  The RICs have collected individual records for approximately 685,000 unique students from 350 participating school districts, including the City of Buffalo.

   

What is the statewide student data system?

 

The statewide student data system is intended to build on LEAP and STEP data collections and the foundation laid by the regional data repositories of individual data begun by BOCES Regional Information Centers. It consists of four components:

 

·        A system of statewide unique student identifiers

·        State and regional repositories of student performance, program and demographic data

·        Tools for data analysis

·        Training and assistance for school districts

 

Statewide Unique Student Identifiers:  The Department has designed a system to provide a stable, unique student identifier to every student in New York State’s public schools. This system will assign a unique identifier to public school students in grades preK through 12 in New York State.  This will enable better tracking of students, enhance student data reporting and improve data quality.

 

State and Regional Data Repositories:  We are creating a State repository of student data required for the State to meet its reporting requirements. This will be a subset of data collected and maintained in regional repositories.  School districts will transmit and maintain their student data in a standardized format in regional repositories, and the Department will collect the data necessary for reporting purposes directly from these standardized repositories. No student names will be collected in the State repository, although individual-level data will be stored, using the unique student identifier.

 

Tools for Data Analysis: The Department must ensure that all school districts have the tools needed to use the information in the State and regional data repositories to improve curriculum and instruction. We must provide parents and guardians with appropriate information to understand the achievement level of their children on State assessments and their role in improving their children's performance. As part of the statewide student data system, the Department will provide a series of standard reports using repository data.

 

Training and Assistance for School Districts: The Department recognizes that all student-level data begins at the district level. Statewide efforts must account for local practices and needs, and provide support to local and regional efforts to collect and manage student data. The Department will provide leadership, guidance and support in three areas:

 

Data Requirements: The core of the statewide student data system is individual student data. All individual student data originates at the school level. Some, but not all, of these data need to be submitted to the Department to meet State and federal requirements. Our aim is to collect these data once and use these items for multiple purposes.

 

Data Standards: Data standards help ensure data quality by defining the meaning and purpose of data items, as well as their format and structure. These standards will ease the transfer of data stored in local student information systems to regional and State databases. We are building on existing data standards set by LEAP, STEP, and the regional repositories, with the goal of having statewide standards for all data elements.  Attachment C contains an example of a standard for an element of student data.

 

Local Technical Assistance: For districts and regional centers to participate effectively in a statewide system, they must understand and use the statewide data standards and best practices for the management of data to ensure accuracy. We will provide technical assistance to regional and district staff to support this transition.

 

Roles and Responsibilities.

 

>      State Education Department

The New York State Education Department fosters the development of the statewide system to meet federal and State data reporting requirements. We are responsible to ensure resources are provided efficiently and effectively; implement the unique identifier system; establish repositories; set standards; reduce redundancy in data collection; provide access to analyses of repository data; promote equity; and highlight best practices.

 

>      Regional Information Centers (RICs) and Big 5 City School Districts

Regional Information Centers, the New York City Department of Education and the other “Big Four” city school districts are partners in this effort, organizing data at the regional level and providing coordination between the State Education Department and school districts. Some of these entities have constructed regional warehouses to develop, maintain and support the statewide data collection process, in compliance with regionally developed data standards determined through local planning processes.

 

>      BOCES

BOCES will work with local school districts to provide technical assistance in data analysis that supports staff in making appropriate use of the data. BOCES will design and deliver targeted staff development to support school improvement efforts derived from the analysis of data.

 

>      School Districts and Schools

Districts are responsible for providing quality data and for using data as an integral part of their planning processes, including staff development. Districts must designate staff to be trained in quality data management, and staff to be trained in the use of data and reports from the repository to improve curriculum and instruction.

 

The Department has established a governance structure to provide coordination, communication and management oversight for statewide student data collection activities. An Executive Committee, comprising senior managers in the Department, provides overall project leadership. A Steering Committee, including representatives from the Big 5 and other school districts, BOCES, Regional Information Centers (RICs) and Department staff, reviews project progress, determines policy issues and oversees communications to the field. An internal Implementation Committee is responsible for day-to-day activities of the project, including development of the project plan, timetables for deliverables and reports.

 

Current actions

 

We have initiated these activities to implement the four components of the statewide student data system:

 

Statewide unique student identifiers

 

The technology to assign and maintain unique student identifiers has been developed.  To obtain a unique identifier for a student, a district must submit a student identification data set comprising student name, date of birth, guardian name, place of birth, date of first polio immunization and native language.  These characteristics are fed into a matching algorithm which determines if the data matches a previously submitted individual. If so, the unique identifier already assigned is returned to the submitting district. If the data set only partially matches an existing data set, district personnel must review the information and determine if the data set represents the same student.  If no match for the data set is found on the file, the system determines that the student does not have an identifier and assigns and returns one.

 

The system is completely secure and only authorized staff may submit student information or retrieve student identifiers.  The student identifier database is separate from the statewide student data repository database.  Identifiers generated from the student identification system will be used in the regional repositories but will be encrypted when student data is placed in the State repository. Because the unique identifier on the State repository will be encrypted, data in the repository cannot be connected with names and other student information in the unique identifier system.

 

We will complete testing of the unique student identifier system on selected school district data in July 2004.  This process will help define training needs and further refine procedures for obtaining student identifiers. We are working with personnel in RICs to identify districts that can assist in the testing.

 

Following these tests, we will assign unique student identifiers to approximately 685,000 students with records maintained by the RIC repositories.

 

State and regional data repositories

 

The contract to purchase and implement the State data repository has been awarded and is under review by the Office of the State Comptroller. This contract provides for a data repository at the Department for statewide data analysis and reporting, as well as three regional data repositories, similar to those operated by the RICs. These regional repositories will meet district needs for analysis, reporting and information sharing. 

 

The Department will provide financial support for operating three regional data repositories; $1.5 million has been budgeted for this effort.  One of these repositories will be dedicated to the New York City Department of Education.  This configuration of regional repositories provides the maximum efficiency, greatest economy of scale and meets the need for regional proximity. The Department will select two sites from among the Regional Information Centers based on technological capacity, staff skills and location.  The Department anticipates that the regional repository sites will use the developed skills of staff at other RICs. All RICs will continue to provide services to school districts to prepare and extract their data for loading into one of the regional repositories (see Attachment B).

 

Tools for data analysis

 

We are preparing a Request for Proposals to provide the public, the Department, and school districts with a tool for analyzing data and generating reports, based on the repository data, showing student performance on the grades 3-8 English language arts and mathematics assessments. Printed copies of selected reports will be distributed to school districts; appropriate reports will be available via the Internet to authorized users. The statewide student data system will provide a repository for required assessment scores, and reports are to be generated from this source. Once implemented, this analysis and reporting tool will be modified for use with all State assessments and other outcome measures, such as graduation rate. 

 

Training and assistance to school districts

 

A crucial challenge to the Department is to provide guidance, training and support to local districts in implementing statewide standards in their local systems, and extracting information from those systems to populate the State and regional repositories. Beginning in the fall of 2004 the Department will provide a series of seminars to school district staff on the requirements of the statewide data system.  This activity will continue through the 2004-05 school year. The Department will provide training on the data requirements, including definitions and formats, and on best practice for managing data and ensuring data accuracy.

 

By one recent estimate, there are over 25 student information systems in use throughout New York State. The RICs have worked with schools to collect individual student data for their own data warehouse project. The Department will rely on the extensive knowledge and expertise of the RIC staff who have been working with districts to implement data warehousing at the regional level and to provide LEAP and STEP data, to accomplish this task.

 

What is the schedule for data collection?

 

The unique identifier will be applied to existing individual records in the current RIC data warehouses this year.  The LEAP and STEP data collection cycle for the 2004-2005 school year will require assignment of the unique identifier for all records.

 

The statewide student data system will begin to replace the LEAP and STEP data collection systems beginning with data collected for the 2005-06 school year.  The data collected in summer 2006 will include data for the school year 2005-2006 and will include all students in grades 3-12, selected students in grades K-2 (Limited English Proficient and Reading First) and students enrolled in GED programs operated by public school districts, BOCES or the Office of Children and Family Services.  All of these students will have a statewide unique student identifier assigned to them.

 

The goal of replacing the LEAP and STEP systems is part of an incremental deployment of the statewide student data system.   The key milestones in this incremental deployment are:

 

Data for school year 2004-05

·        Collected via LEAP/STEP software in summer 2005.

·        Includes students in grades 4, 5, 8 and 9-12 as well as Limited English Proficient students in grades K-12, students in grades K-2 who participate in Reading First and students in GED programs in public school districts and BOCES.

·        All students in this data collection will have a unique student identifier assigned to them.

Data for school year 2005-06

• Collected via the regional/state data repositories at specified times during the school year.
• Collection scope will include students in grades 3-12 as well as limited English proficient students in grades K-12, grades K-2 students who participate in Reading First programs, students enrolled in Career and Technical Programs and GED programs in public school districts and BOCES. 
• All students in this data collection will have a unique student identifier assigned to them.  The unique identifier will be encrypted as part of the transfer process from the regional data repositories to the state data repository.
   

Data for school year 2006-07

• Collected via the regional/state data repositories in at specified times during the school year.
• Collection scope will expand to include students in grades prekindergarten-12 as well as limited English proficient students in grades K-12, grades K-2 students who participate in Reading First programs, students enrolled in Career and Technical Programs and GED programs in public school districts and BOCES. 
• All students statewide will have a unique student identifier assigned to them.
• Additional data elements will be collected.
   

Challenges and Risks

(1) Determine the appropriate configuration of regional data repositories.

The Department will provide financial support for three regional data repositories.  The Regional Information Centers have seven operational data warehouses.  Since our statewide data management plan will fund only three, this alters the business model that they have put in place.  The challenge is proving that this is the most efficient number of repositories, and meets the needs of all stakeholders.

(2)  Managing expectations.

A statewide database of individual student data, tracked over time, is a powerful tool. Once fully developed and implemented, the system will help districts improve results and aid policymakers in creating policy.  While the system incrementally improves the quality of data, we will need to manage the desire of stakeholders to have immediate access to information that the system is not yet able to produce.  The migration from summary data collections, to individual record data collection through LEAP and STEP, has demonstrated the value of better data.  The statewide student data system is the next step in improving our data.  We must carefully manage our expectations so they do not exceed the capacity of the evolving system, or impede its development.

 (3) Provide data readiness training and support to local school districts to improve local data systems.

The single largest task in student data collection is working with school districts to identify, define, standardize and collect their data, help them understand the data requirements and file formats and to meet these requirements through their information systems.  During the regional warehouse project, the RICs and BOCES identified this as the greatest challenge.  The risk inherent in this challenge is identifying the fiscal and personnel resources necessary to carry out the support at the local level.

(4)  Sustain the level of resources from the Department necessary to carry out the full implementation of a statewide student data system.

The Department has made a number of starts on a collection of individual student data in the past.  However, we have not completed the task.   Our data management has improved through the use of LEAP, STEP, and the standardization efforts with the RIC data warehouse project.  Our greatest risks are sustaining the resources to maintain the system over time; maintaining thorough communication with our regional and local partners; and committing to an efficient, effective data management and reporting system.

Attachment A

 

Overview Statewide Student Data System Timeline

 

The following table is an overview of data collection activities for individual student data.  This table presents an overall framework for developing and implementing data collection systems for the school years 2003-04 through 2007-08.  This overall framework will guide specific details such as the individual data elements collected, the specific student populations and the dates of submission to the Department.

 

Date of collection	What is collected	Outcomes	Technology/ Method
August 2004	Grades 4, 5, 8 and Limited English Proficiency (LEP) and Reading First (grades K-2) student demographics and assessments for school year 2003/04	Supports school report card	LEAP
August 2004	Grades 9-12, Career and Technical Education (CTE) student demographics and assessments for school year 2003/04	Supports school report card and cohort analysis	STEP
August 2005	Grades 4, 5, 8 and LEP (grades K-12) and Reading First students (grades K-2) demographics and assessments for school year 2004/05	Supports school report card	LEAP.  Unique Student ID applied to all records
August 2005	Grades 9-12, enrollment in approved GED programs and CTE student demographics and assessments for school year 2004/05	Supports school report card, cohort analysis and improved tracking of students from district to district	STEP.  Unique Student ID applied to all records
October 2005	Enrollment and demographics for grades 3-12 and LEP (grades PK-12) for school year 2005/06	Ensures unique ID for all grades 3-12 students, lays foundation for replacing BEDS reporting in October 06; enables production of answer sheets for grades 3-8 assessments	Statewide data warehouse with Unique Student ID applied to all records
December 2005	Grades 3-12 basic data on students with disabilities for school year 2005/06	Supports school report card and federal reporting on students with disabilities	Statewide data warehouse with Unique Student ID applied to all records
August 2006	Grades 3-12, LEP (grades K-12), Reading First students (grades K-2), CTE and GED student demographics and assessments for school year 2005/06	Ensures unique ID for all grades 3-12 students, lays foundation for replacing BEDS reporting in October 2006. Enables production of answer sheets for Grades 3-8 assessments	Statewide data warehouse with Unique Student ID applied to all records.
October 2006	Enrollment and demographics for grades PK-12 students school year 2006/07	Replaces BEDS data collection	Statewide data warehouse with Unique Student ID applied to all records
December 2006	Grades PK -12 basic data for students with disabilities for school year 2006/07	Replaces some components of PD data collection and enables tracking of students across districts	Statewide data warehouse with Unique Student ID applied to all records
August 2007	Grades K-12, GED and CTE student demographics and assessments for school year 2006/07	Comprehensive data on all students in public schools	Statewide data warehouse with Unique Student ID applied to all records
October 2007	Enrollment and demographics for grades PK-12 students school year 2007/08	Replaces BEDS data collection	Statewide data warehouse with Unique Student ID applied to all records
December 2007	Grades PK -12 basic data for students with disabilities for school year 2007/08	Replaces additional components of PD data collection and enables tracking of students with disabilities across districts and programs	Statewide data warehouse with Unique Student ID applied to all records
March 2008	Grades K-12 student demographics and assessments for school year 2007/08 school year. Includes assessments offered through January, 2008	Comprehensive data on all students in public schools	Statewide data warehouse with Unique Student ID applied to all records
August 2008	Grades K-12, CTE and GED student demographics and assessments for school year 2007/08 school year. Includes assessments offered through June, 2008	Comprehensive data on all students in public schools	Statewide data warehouse with Unique Student ID applied to all records

 

 

 

 

 

Attachment C

 

Sample Student Data Standard:

 

Funding Source (Alphanumeric 4 bytes)

A funding source code should be reported for all students. Identify up to four sources of funding for services received by the student. If applicable, services funded by any of the federal or State fund sources listed below must be reported before any other fund source:

 

§         Title I -Part A (code E)

§         Title III: Language Instruction for Limited English Proficient and Immigrant Students (code V)

§         LEP General Aid Part 154 (code L)

§         Title X - Part C:  Homeless Education / McKinney-Vento funds (code X)

§         Title I - Part D: Prevention and Intervention Programs for children and youth who are neglected, delinquent, or at-risk (code G)

 

Ø      If a building operates a Title I school-wide program, all students in the building should be reported with a Title I funding source (code E).

Ø      If a building operates a Title I targeted assistance program, only students actually served by the Title I funds should be reported with a Title I funding source (code E).

Ø      If a student does not receive services funded by any federal or State fund sources, the student must be reported as being served by a Local Assistance (tax levy) Program (code N).