Plan to process CA education data system behind graphics

From Adam EchelmanCalmness

This story was originally published by CalmattersS Register about their ballots.

During his first year, as governor Gavin New, he created the creation of a complete, state educational data system in one of his main priorities, but his debut is behind the graphics.

In 2019 he started A data system from swing to careerMany years of initiative for collecting data from pre-school schools, K-12 regions, colleges and job training programs, a climax in a series of public management boards that monitor students’ progress. A few years later, during his campaign for re-election in 2022, Cradle to Career was the logo of his educational platform.

“It was an initiative to sign the governor,” said Alex Barrios, President of the partnership for educational results, a non -profit purpose of education data. “You would think that taxpayers would ask,” Where is this thing? “

The Cradle to Career team initially stated that the public would have access to some of the data from Spring 2024Most of all through a website that will show the progress of specific students in the school area through college and their first few years of work. The Cradle to Career team later updates the timeline to say the data will be publicly available in Autumn of 2024S Now Angelica Palomar, a spokesman for the data project, said the first data board would be publicly available this Spring, although it did not specify a date.

Palmar said the first stage of the project is almost ready to release and that the delay stems from an abundance of caution in terms of students’ privacy. For example, she pointed to certain populations as students in rural areas or certain racial/ethnic groups that are so small that it is easy to understand someone’s identity. Federal law prohibits schools from sharing students’ personal data.

“We prioritize the provision of the data system, guarantee the protection of confidentiality and provide related information that is accurate and reliable before we can make our tools publicly available,” she said.

The State Department of Technology, which periodically inspects IT projects, needs “Instant corrective action“Because of your slow schedule.

Once released, the Cradle to Career data system can reshape parents and students’ decisions and lead to significant changes in policy. With these data, parents will be able to see the long -term college results and employment in the local neighborhood of their child’s elementary school. School and College Advisers could give more accurate advice to students on their future and state programs, such as The Calkids Save Save Programcan use data to identify potential beneficiaries.

There is no adequate data system

Prior to the launch of the Cradle-to Career, California was “one of only a handful of countries without a student data system that could answer important questions about the educational pipeline and the impact of education on work and profit”, “” report by the Institute of Public Policy in California, indicated in 2018.

KentkiThe data system already allows this type of analysis and is the “canonical” example of good education data, said Iwunze Ugo, a researcher at the institute. He acknowledged the progress of California after the 2018 report “The swing system to the career in California is particularly remarkable for how ambitious it is.”

Since 2019, the state has allocated over $ 24 million for the project. The Cradle to Career data system has become an official state entity, with a team of 25 people, 21 board members and two, 16-member consulting councils. Hugo pointed out that, unlike other states, California made a “community commitment” in the center of the data instrument: the state launched a multi -year campaign by exploring communities in both Spanish and English throughout the country regarding potential uses and concerns with its data and the way they will be presented.

Cradle-to-Career has signed data sharing agreements with 16 other government agencies, such as the California Department of Education and the California Labor and Hospital Development Agency, and has been processed over a billion data points about the education and results of the workforce of students.

At a February board meeting, Cradle to Career employees shared a report on progress, outlining over 20 achievements, each with a check next to it. The only blank field in the checklist was the last: Officially launch the first data management panelS

In his initial remarks, the chairman of the board of Cradle to Career Gavin Payne did not admit the delay-no one of the members of the board did.

Mary Ann Bates, CEO of the Cradle to Career Data System, cited a delay briefly in her remarks to the Council, saying that her office is committed to launching the first data tranche and “examining all options to keep the contractor responsible” for “some delays and lost time”. Asked by Calmatters to clarify the comments, Palomar, a spokesman for Cradle-to-Career, said Deloitte was the contractor, but she refused to specify why this may be responsible for these delays.

Can the data be “used” school districts?

Although unprecedented in the range of California, many of the characteristics of the swing data system to the career are not new. The data already exists, albeit in some difficult places and some groups have already started working together to analyze shared trends.

The Barrios Non-Profit Organization, the partnership for educational results, has received over $ 13 million since 2012 to help create and operate Cal-Pass Plus, allowing consumers to see how students from specific areas of the California High School at the College level. But Cal-Pass Plus is only available to researchers as well as to school and colleges administrators, and most K-12 areas are not required to participate. However, in any year, Cal-Pass Plus has records of more than 70% of high school students in the state, Barios said.

The compulsory data sharing system, such as the cradle of the career, is more difficult to implement, he said. “School districts do not want the data used against them.” For example, he said that a fear is that residents and politicians can blame a high school for low grades in college instead of working to improve it. Palomar said current delays are not bound by the school districts, as the data already exists and are widely shared.

Barios said his organization had stopped managing Cal-Pass Plus a few years ago, partly because he suggested that he would soon be outdated.

“We gave up all these things, thinking that the state would do it,” he said. “But it obviously didn’t happen.”

This article was Originally Published on CalMatters and was reissued under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivatives License.