Earlier this month, in partnership with the National League of Cities (NLC) and the Urban Institute, the Data Quality Campaign (DQC) convened 60 of Texas’s most energetic data leaders—state policymakers and administrators, philanthropic organizations, researchers, community-based organizations, and municipal leaders—to identify and prioritize the most important steps Texas can take in 2014 to ensure that the people most committed to improving results for the state’s young people have the information they need to make a difference.
Through several hours of discussion and a consensus-building exercise facilitated by NLC and DQC, the following six opportunities were prioritized for action in the coming year:
1. Improve timeliness and fidelity of student data available through Education Research Centers (ERCs), including a number of specifically identified data elements that are presently collected by the state but either omitted from the ERCs or not provided in a timely manner. The group affirmed that ERCs are an incredibly valuable resource to decisionmakers at all levels and that recent legislation had improved their accessibility and usefulness.
2. Work with the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) to better tailor public reporting of state data, with an emphasis on identifying the types of data disaggregation (by neighborhood, gender, program enrollment, and so forth) necessary to inform policy and practical action.
3. Increase the role of nonprofit and community-based organizations in TEA and THECB data governance through a new advisory body to the state that would provide regular feedback on local data needs and the relevance of existing state reports and resources.
4. Provide more actionable feedback to high schools and their community-based partners on students’ postsecondary and workforce success by identifying specific informational needs of stakeholders (e.g., identify college-readiness gaps, build “on ramps” for disconnected youth, increase financial aid application rates) and evaluate the effectiveness of programs aimed at increasing postsecondary achievement.
5. Establish a core set of student-level success indicators (“common indicators”) to provide a more shared, aligned, and comprehensive view of the educational system’s performance across Texas for a variety of stakeholders; to drive strategic systemic strategies; to reduce the administrative cost to programs of duplicative reporting requirements; and to leverage regional and state investment in common work.
6. Recognize and support the important role of “data intermediaries” at local and regional levels, through grant making and professional development to increase their capacity and with public policy that, where possible, facilitates their access to relevant administrative data.
At least one meeting participant volunteered to lead work on each of these opportunities and to periodically report progress. A late 2014 meeting will reconvene these organizations and other key education stakeholders to summarize their progress, celebrate new resources, and identify and prioritize new opportunities. A big part of that will include developing strategic communications around the value of data and building an expanded coalition of support that’s ready and willing to engage policymakers and advocate when necessary.
As part of DQC’s focus on local data use—in schools, classrooms, and communities—we’re facilitating conversations like this in states across the country. This week DQCers Chris Kingsley, Lisa Sparrow, and Brennan Parton are in Olympia, Washington, with 50 of the state’s most dedicated data leaders. Will Washington’s priorities for action match Texas’s? How do these priorities jibe with what’s happening in your state?
From wherever you are, join the conversation on Twitter at #LocalDataUse and keep an eye out for our Postcards from the Road.
