Is it Time for a Public National Student Clearinghouse?
This week, the Department of Education released the latest application for its State Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS) grants program. With policy makers and the public so focused on the effectiveness of and returns on postsecondary education, it’s not surprising that one of the application’s three priorities is to link K-12 data to “postsecondary and/or workforce data.” What iscurious, however, is one sentence nestled in the priority section
States are encouraged to develop their own postsecondary data and not simply purchase this
data from an organization external to the agencies partnering under this application (emphasis
added).
The Department has spent more than $500M during the last 5 years to help states