MORE FEDERAL GRANTS TO CONTROL EDUCATION?
Is the Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS) Grant Program
from the National Center for Educational Statistics and the Department
of Education coming to your State? Did we really believe that the
passage of the ESSA would establish “local control”?
Brookings Institute informs us that “With
the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), state education
agencies (SEAs) and local education agencies (LEAs) need to make
evidenced-based decisions for students”.
Please
remember that the scope of the ESSA includes “mental health”, and
“work-force training”. State standards include behavioral and
attitudinal conditioning to accommodate "Social
Justice" and "Agenda 2030". With pre-determined goals and objectives
and with the student virtually wired to the computer what do we think
the outcomes will be?
“Better decisions require better information.
This principle lies at the heart of the Statewide Longitudinal Data
Systems (SLDS) Grant Program. Through grants and a growing range of
services and resources, the program has helped propel the successful
design, development, implementation, and expansion of K12 and P-20W
(early learning through the workforce) longitudinal data systems.”
Through
this grant program, aimed at state Longitudinal Data Systems, will this
be the fail-safe, lock-in for total control of the student? Keep the
definition of “Scientific Communism” in mind when reading the
ramifications of the Grant Program.
“Scientific communism was
one of the three major ingredients of Marxism-Leninism as taught in the
Soviet Union in all institutions of higher education and pursued in the
corresponding research institutions, and departments. The
discipline consisted in investigation of laws, patterns, ways, and forms
of class struggle, socialist revolution, and development of socialism
and construction of communism. Passing exams in scientific communism
was an obligatory prerequisite in obtaining any postgraduate scientific
degree in the Soviet Union; see "Kandidat" article for details." [Emphasis,Ed.]
.
Through
this national program, emanating from the Department of Education,
Grants are being made to the states to implement this system for work-force training for K-P20W.
“Better decisions require better information.
This principle lies at the heart of the State-wide Longitudinal Data
Systems (SLDS) Grant Program. Through grants and a growing range of
services and resources, the program has helped propel the successful
design, development, implementation, and expansion of K12 and P-20W
(early learning through the workforce) longitudinal data systems.”
The following article is an overview of the Program:
Excerpts:
“The
research agenda can help a researcher propose a study that is aligned
to the state needs, has relevance, is practical, and focuses on finding solutions for students, their families, and the good of the state.” [Community education, Ed. comment and emphasis]
“Utilize a research request process. Most
SEAs have a process by which a researcher can make a request—and
typically, the applicant has to explain how the proposed research aligns
with the SEA’s priorities. In this way, the SEA can abide by the Family
Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) requirements, a law that
ensures the privacy of student records. FERPA restricts information
sharing to protect students, but does allow the disclosure of
information to specified officials for audit or evaluation purposes.
Therefore, in order for an SEA to enter into a data-sharing agreement [1] with a researcher for student-level data, the researcher’s study needs to be aligned with SEA priorities,
so that the results can be leveraged for audit or evaluation purposes.
If the study does not align, the SEA cannot enter into an agreement as
it would not further the understanding of their programs or priorities.” [Emphasis,
Ed. State standards are written to include, “social justice” and
behavioral attitudes. Couple that with mental health and is anything
off-limits? Ed. comment]
“Ultimately,
both SEAs and researchers stand to benefit from successful
partnerships, and not just through increasing the number of publications
by researchers or having evidence-based results available for SEAs to
put to use for decision-making about student learning—though these are
two very compelling reasons. As these partnerships become an integral
part of how SEAs and LEAs conduct work, there will be changes in how decisions
are made. There’s greater potential to have impact on students and to
be more efficient and effective in their day-to-day business. For
researchers, they will be able to see a more direct impact of their
work, and can potentially explore further to help guide SEAs and LEAs as
they make critical decisions for students. These mutually beneficial
relationships have the potential to truly help propel students and make
positive changes in the future.”
The following are just a few bullet points taken from a SLDS Conference with various participating States and their innovations:
“This past summer, the
Arizona Department of Education launched its new education data system
AzEDS to LEAs throughout the state. Not only will the system provide
instantaneous student data to dashboards for educators to utilize in the
classroom, it will also incorporate the element of payment and is
expected to save LEAs up to $57 million a year.
Learn how schools across
Delaware are training users in phases and how district and teacher
leaders are becoming subject matter experts to support local staff.
Additionally, Delaware has provided periodic stakeholder support through
user group conferences developed in collaboration with another SLDS
state and with travel supported by a Personnel Exchange Network (PEN)
grant
Delaware
will demonstrate a customized Individual Learning Plan module within
Performance PLUS that can be used to view and analyze assessment data
while developing customized student learning plans. With this tool,
teachers have access to filterable, longitudinal data reports to make
well-informed,
Learn
about the current phase of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher
Education (WICHE) multi-state data exchange project, including identity
resolution issues and solutions in a multistate environment
Representatives
from the RELs program, located within the Institute of Education
Sciences’ National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional
Assistance, will discuss the RELs’ work, which involves partnering with
school districts, state departments of education, and others to use data
and research to improve academic outcomes for students.
See
and review Nebraska’s stakeholder engagement efforts around its
educator-facing dashboard, which included prioritizing and conducting
focus groups virtually through the Design Teams process. Nebraska will
also discuss its training curriculum and train-the-trainer approach to
empowering educators to use data for continuous school improvement.
Indiana will discuss how it developed the data story for its report Research Analysis for Educational and Workforce Churn Patterns within Economic Growth Region.
The demonstration will focus on navigating and interacting with
stakeholders and technical/research advisory groups. The state will also
discuss the technical resources and personnel hours needed to develop a
robust data story.
Nevada
will demonstrate the Nevada Pre-K to Workforce Research system (NPWR).
Users can open and drill down into public-facing reports that use data
from K12, higher education, and workforce sources to show trends and
patterns in Nevada education and how those trends affect the workforce.
This
presentation will describe how North Carolina engages and solicits
input from research stakeholders for its Early Childhood Integrated Data
System (NC ECIDS). It will cover how the state is developing an early
childhood research agenda for its longitudinal data system. The state
will also describe the data request process as accessed through its web
portal and related procedures for approval and support of any research
request.”
“Just
as technology has rapidly advanced the healthcare and communications
industries, it also is being used to transform education. According to
the National Center for Education Statistics,
the majority of classrooms across the U.S. now have computers and
Internet access, and investment in educational technology (edtech) is
reaching record highs.”