Every so often, you speak to a colleague in your field who understands issues and solutions at a very clear and deep level. My colleague Rick Groves and I had a great conversation with Christopher Lohse of the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) recently and we wanted to share some of what he is thinking about with respect to education data.
 
I give CCSSO full credit for uncovering the five priorities of state school chiefs with respect to education data. My commentary follows each listed priority and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Chris, CCSSO or its members: 
 
1.    Data liquidity – Data liquidity is by far the most discussed challenge around education data. Today, the term has gained much more traction in the context of healthcare and patient records, but the fundamental concept as applied to education is that a student’s data should move with him or her and should not be bound to a particular school information system or district data system.   As one healthcare commentator noted, it is after all, the individual’s data.
 
2.     Common definitions – We struggle greatly in education with developing common definitions for even the most straightforward of education terms. During a workshop in Toledo, OH, I asked participants at six different working tables to write down their definition of ‘high school graduation rate.’ I then asked them to pass their definition to the next working table and have the participants at that table interpret the definition that was just handed to them. What we learned very quickly was that 1) nobody had the same definition of ‘high school graduate rate’ and 2) nobody agreed with the definition that was shared with them. Until we have common definitions for even our most basic educational outcomes, we will be greatly limited in our ability to actually understand what is happening among all students across the country and even across a state or school district. We have always found a study by The Buckeye Institute helpful in deconstructing the graduation rate definition issue in particular for those interested. Of course, a more recent piece by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute explores the issue even further.
 
3.    Relevance – Schools and districts collect swaths of education data and what we consistently hear is that much of what is collected has limited value to teachers, parents, students, and school leaders. More often, the data are merely tracking outputs, rather than an actual change in status or condition. We see relevance appearing as a more critical factor for ED as they evolve the indicators for the Race to the Top Fund. For example, under No Child Left Behind, we saw limited value in knowing whether teachers were highly qualified (certifications, tenure, and degree attainment), when what we really wanted to know is whether teachers were effective (student growth), a relevant outcome and metric we hope stay part of the Race to the Top Fund competition.
 
4.    Timeliness – Learning that a particular student is behind their growth and learning trajectory at the end of a school year is of limited value and we owe it to ourselves to make sure we are collecting, analyzing, and reporting data about students, teachers, schools, school leaders, and districts on a schedule that allows us to change course and improve our performance. Data and analysis that are provided beyond the point when corrective action can be taken is at best useless and at worst irresponsible.
 
5.    Accuracy – We need not say much beyond the simple fact that strategy and analysis that comes from data is only as good as those underlying data. With many of our clients, we are increasingly building self-validating data collection tools in order to improve accuracy. Furthermore, from our work in education, we find that the clearest path to accuracy is starting with common definitions on the front of the data collection and reporting process.   
 
I want to again thank Chris and CCSSO for the robust conversation and sense a strong movement in the sector to move briskly toward these five priorities.