California, in gray, is the only state that didn’t report this year to the Data Quality Campaign’s 9th annual analysis. Two states in orange, Arkansas and Delaware, reported a perfect 10 actions to create effective state data policies.
California for the first time declined this year to participate in Data Quality Campaign’s annual national survey,creating a hole in the 50-state map marking progress states have made in collecting and effectively using educational data. The results of the 9th annual report were released Tuesday.
The survey tracks states’ progress in taking 10 actions the national nonprofit organization has deemed essential to help parents, teachers and policymakers make informed decisions to improve student achievement. These include creating a database that can track students’ progress from pre-kindergarten through college and the workplace, training teachers in how to read and use data to target student interventions, and permitting data access to researchers and universities while preserving student privacy.
“It’s disappointing,” said Brad Strong, senior director of education policy for Oakland-basedChildren Now, a strong data advocate. “Participating in the survey helped provide a national perspective on our data use.”
In 2011, the Campaign started sending the survey to governors instead of state K-12 education departments, because questions also pertain to higher education and pre-K data. Since then, only the office of Gov. Jerry Brown, who has questioned the value of state-collected education data, responded that it wasn’t interested in participating in the survey, with no reason given, said Paige Kowalski, director of state policy and advocacy for the Campaign. The California Department of Education filled out the survey in 2011 and 2012 at the Campaign’s request but wasn’t asked to