Since 2010, the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association's (SHEEO) Strong Foundations survey has reported on the evolution and value of postsecondary student unit record systems (PSURSs) by illuminating the condition of state postsecondary data in the U.S. In the "Strong Foundations 2023" survey, which was administered from…

Over the last decade, state efforts to build stronger data infrastructure and integrate data about early childhood services have continued to grow. A stronger data infrastructure supports states in more easily linking data across programs, which in turn makes it easier to analyze and use that data to answer important policy questions. An Early…

California has long been a national and global leader in developing and maintaining quality higher education options, as well as in providing financial aid and consumer protections for Californians who access that education. However, although California's colleges and the state government do collect, receive, and report a great deal of data, these…

Enacted in 2014, the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) brought numerous changes to existing federal employment and training programs, including requiring the Department of Labor (DOL) and the Department of Education (Education) to implement a common performance accountability system across the six WIOA-designated core programs. WIOA…

This guide is designed for use by school, district, and state staff to improve the effectiveness of efforts to collect and use disciplinary incident data, including reporting accurate and timely incident data to the federal government. It provides recommendations on what types of data to collect, why it is critical to collect such data, and how to…

The Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics (TEDS-M), conducted under the aegis of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), was designed to inform policy and practice in mathematics teacher education. For educational policymakers, TEDS-M contributes data on institutional arrangements that…

This project assesses the feasibility of creating a voluntary, nationwide data dictionary that can be used to standardize the reporting of postsecondary accountability reporting requirements for the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006 (otherwise known as Perkins IV). Variables, field codes, and programming instructions,…

While states have made tremendous progress building the capacity to collect longitudinal data, developing the systems and practices to tap into P-20W data remains a nascent effort in most states. This primer aims to provide policymakers with information and recommendations to propel states' progress toward using P-20W data to prepare…

This chapter describes the development of a state-level student tracking system that enables the state and institutions to follow various cohort types of students across institutional boundaries. The system was developed by the Policy Research and Data Warehousing section of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV). SCHEV is the…

California currently faces an opportunity to develop an effective data system that can assist in improving the state's future understanding of the educational progress of English learners (ELs). This policy brief outlines the needs for good data on ELs and makes recommendations for creating an effective longitudinal data system for ELs. It…

The Data Quality Campaign is a national, collaborative effort to encourage and support state policymakers to improve the collection, availability and use of high-quality education data and to implement state longitudinal data systems to improve student achievement. The campaign aims to provide tools and resources that will assist state development…

Major databases and data collection efforts related to postsecondary education are described. Database selection was limited to data that was national in scope, of broad interest, and timely (after 1972). Approximately 95 databases are covered, each of a two-page abstract that describes the subject matter and scope of the database, the data…

Major databases and data collection efforts related to postsecondary education are described. Database selection was limited to data that was national in scope, of broad interest, and timely (after 1970). Over 75 databases are covered, each on a two-page abstract that describes subject matter and scope of the database, the data collection method,…

This study compiled descriptive information about what states are doing or planning to do with early intervention data systems, a component of early intervention systems as specified in Part H of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The study examined the uses of data systems in eight states: Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts,…

Recently, to encourage secondary analysis, the federal government has begun to arrange for public policy data to be documented, archived and released to the public. The purpose of this document is to provide government project officers with guidelines for archiving government-sponsored data files. The guidelines represent a model for…