KIDS/KSLDS Summary – 04/23/09
Since becoming operational in January, 2008, the Kentucky Statewide Longitudinal Data System (KSLDS) has continued to increase the number of data sources it receives as well as the quantity and quality of the analytics it provides to educators across the state. The KSLDS continues to provide information for helping students, reporting, promoting data driven decision making, and uncovering opportunities for increasing efficiency.
As the third phase of the initial project implementation winds down, we are beginning to expand K12 capabilities and establishing linkages to teacher certification and post secondary data sources – It is in these areas where we will be collaborating with our partner agencies in regards to P-16 governance, privacy, and data sharing.
Background
The KDE has just completed implementation of the foundational components of the KSLDS. An original justification for this project was to provide data warehouse and business intelligence functionality to all school districts within Kentucky. It was estimated that each of Kentucky’s 176 school districts would need approximately $750,000 to implement a solution just for their district. KDE has been able to utilize a $6M federal grant to implement a centralized solution available at no additional cost to all districts. This is a much more efficient solution overall than investing $132M for individual district implementations.
It is estimated that each year, Kentucky educators and administrators spend 12 years worth of time searching for, collecting, and providing data. The KSLDS is expected to save those 12 years worth of time and allow staff to focus on their primary responsibility of preparing students to enter the workforce and be responsible citizens.
State education agencies are significantly behind the corporate world in terms of embracing data warehousing and business intelligence. A number of organizations are pushing education towards improved data management and usage. Most notable among those are the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) and the Data Quality Campaign (DQC). IES is administering Statewide Longitudinal Data System (SLDS) grants from federal funds which provide the initial funding states require to begin SLDS projects. Kentucky was awarded an IES grant in the first round of grants and received the highest award based upon the vision described. The DQC has published and tracks the progress of each state against ten “Essential Elements and Fundamentals of a P-12 Longitudinal Data System.” Kentucky currently meets 9 of those 10 elements as compared to the 38 states meeting 8 or fewer elements.
The long-term vision on which Kentucky was awarded the IES grant was based largely upon the following two concepts:
Impact Instruction - The KSLDS was intended to not just be a data warehouse or reporting solution. The vision for the KSLDS was that educators at all levels, from the classroom to the state education agency, would utilize the KSLDS as a way to improve their decision making. At the classroom level that may mean a teacher has easier access to a more complete set of data about their students which they can utilize to more effectively deliver differentiated instruction. At the school or district administration level it may be utilized by an instructional supervisor to identify which areas of core content students in particular classes are not grasping. At the state level, an intervention administrator may utilize the KSLDS to analyze the impact of their program on student achievement resulting in state administrators more effectively allocating funding.
Streamline Data Collection & Reporting - KDE recognized that in order for the KSLDS to impact instruction, the management of data throughout the state education entities must be improved. As referenced above, KDE has estimated that every year, Kentucky educators spend at least 12 years worth of time just attempting to collect data from different data owners. Through centralizing data from all sources in a single data warehouse, the time required by educators to collect data can nearly be eliminated.
Accomplishments
Foundation
· Hardware and software solutions have been architected and installed.
· ETL for top priority data domains has been developed and data from those domains loaded into the data warehouse.
· Analytic tools with a statewide license, have been deployed to users of various technical abilities through prompted reports, ad hoc drag and drop report creation and scripted report development.
· An enterprise Data Policy Committee has been formed and empowered to address data management across departments and systems.
· Training materials have been developed and training has been conducted for pilot users.
· Recommendations for enterprise business process change (elimination of specific outdated and/or redundant systems, steps to improve data management, cultural changes, etc.) have been documented and provided to leadership.
Reports
During the implementation of these foundational components, the KSLDS has also implemented functionality designed to achieve aspects of the long-term vision.
· Individual Student Report - KDE is able for the first time to provide a single report for each student with all of the following components:
o Enrollment (current and historical)
o Program/intervention participation (current and historical)
o Assessment results (NCLB required, state required, career & technical education and optional assessments such as Advanced Placement)
· Status Exploration Report - One of the most common data requests within KDE is to identify the top 10 or bottom 10 for a certain set of criteria. The KSLDS has implemented functionality allowing users to quickly sort and filter on any of 31data elements from the warehouse. This not only eliminates the need for each user to collect the data themselves, but also ensures that all users are receiving the same data allowing users to become accustomed to a “single version of the truth” which in itself is a significant step forward.
· District Financial Report - One of the district representatives involved with the development of the KSLDS is an assistant superintendent. This assistant superintendent would spend 2-3 days a year collecting financial information from his district as well as peer districts. The District Financial Report allows this user to instantly generate the desired report across any number of districts to show expenses or revenue based upon total dollars or per-pupil dollars. This is just one example of how a single report saves time in one district and it can be assumed that similar benefits exist across the 176 districts. In addition to the cross-district functionality, it also allows for longitudinal analysis within a single district.
· District Staff Report - Similar to the district financial report, detailed staff data is now easily accessible for comparison across districts or within a single district. This comprehensive view of a district aids district leadership and KDE staff when making decisions about services, staffing and spending for the district.
· Kentucky State Map Dashboard – A GIS-based report, use this dashboard to see state and district level performance in a map format. Information on AYP status, drop-out rates, percent of students proficient by subject, attendance rates and several measures are made available on a map of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
· Flexible Performance Analysis Report - The KSLDS has implemented a report designed to allow users not comfortable with the more technical ad hoc drag and drop report creation to still slice and dice their data via a prompted report. This “bridge” report allows users to perform the analysis they would like without the barrier of additional training required for access to the ad hoc tool. Through prompt selections, users can select the data; column and row configurations desired and then quickly refresh the report after changing any of the configurations.
· Scholastic Audit Report - KDE performs audits of both schools and districts every year and provides the results via PDF. The KSLDS has improved the distribution of this information by providing multiple years of audit data for a single location via a single report as well as providing an interface to analyze audit results statewide. This analysis will allow questions such as “How does strong leadership impact student achievement?” to be researched.
· Post-Secondary Feeder Pattern Report - A hot topic in education analytics right now is analyzing the transition between K-12 and post-secondary education, specifically how well K-12 education is preparing students for post-secondary success. The KSLDS is providing Kentucky school-level post-secondary performance along with other typical K-12 data for the first time. This benefits high schools by providing feedback on not only how well they are preparing their students for post-secondary education, but to which post-secondary institutions and programs their students matriculate.
· And MANY MORE…
How Do I Get Access to KSLDS?
KSLDS is a secure website and not accessible on the internet by default. However, if you are in one the groups mentioned below, initial access to KSLDS is a process that usually takes from a couple days to a week to set up with very little required on the part of the individual user. We are working to make this even simpler and faster, so stay tuned. Once you are set up, you can access it whenever you like.
NOTE: You must be on the KETS network, i.e.in a Kentucky public school or district office or at the Kentucky Department of Education, in order to access KIDS. You can access KIDS from other locations, such as hotels, restaurants, etc as long as you are using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to connect back to the KETS network. If you are uncertain of what this means, please get in touch with your local Technology Point of Contact, District Technology Coordinator, or CIO.
If you have questions or an interest in accessing the KSLDS, please email us at kdekidsfeedback@education.ky.gov and we will work with you to determine the most appropriate level of access.