Transparent communication about what kinds and how much data schools have about students offers the best way for parents and teachers to make education decisions.
Everyone with a stake in education — especially parents — should understand the value of data and how it can benefit their families. We know getting the right information into the right hands at the right time can make a world of difference for America’s students. But most people aren’t hearing from their schools, districts, and states about how those data are being used. In fact, most parents hear “education data” and immediately think of test scores — and only test scores. While test results are an important piece of the data puzzle, they’re just one kind of information. What about teacher credentials and graduation rates? Or college enrollment and student growth over time? Not to mention the information schools use to keep buses running on time and hot meals coming through the lunch line. These types and uses of data are valuable, and parents should be aware of all the work that’s happening with them.
Parents like data — when they know what they are and how they’re being used — and feel confident that they’re being kept private and secure. That’s what the Data Quality Campaign (DQC) learned last spring when we convened parents of school-age children in Philadelphia, Phoenix, Kansas City, and Seattle to talk about their concerns with the education system. The problem is most parents don’t know exactly what education data are. Who can blame them?
Trust through transparency
Most parents trust their children’s teachers and school districts. This was borne out in the most recent PDK/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools, which found that 64% of the public has trust and confidence in America’s public school teachers (Bushaw & Calderon, 2014). We need educators and schools to put that trust to work, sharing with parents the full who, what, why, when, and how of data use. This kind of transparency is crucial to parents’ ability to understand how this information can be used to benefit their child — and how it’s being kept private, secure, and confidential. Without this information, people can’t trust that their children’s data are safe. And parents won’t allow schools to use data if they don’t trust that they’re being kept safe.
Educators shouldn’t be alarmed by the important conversation about using student data and how data are being safeguarded. There is some misinformation circulating through that discussion — sometimes repeated in the media — but the dubious arguments are outweighed by legitimate concerns from parents and the public. As a parent myself, I understand the feeling. I want to know that my children’s information is being protected. Just as important, I want to know that it’s being used to advance their learning. Such transparency can strengthen relationships between parents and educators. The first step along that path is communication.
Many actors have a part to play in transparency, but it starts with state education leaders. Districts need clear guidance from the state so they can confidently support teachers’ data use, set their own policies, or ensure that schools are safeguarding state data.
Parents like data — when they know what they are and how they’re being used — and feel confident that they’re being kept private and secure.
Districts should push their states to establish that guidance, since they are at the front lines of communication and need answers to parent questions.
Conversations with parents
Schools and districts should be prepared to answer questions like, “How do I know my child’s privacy is being protected?” Schools and districts must develop and share explanations about their local privacy and security policies. But districts also should be prepared to speak to how data use is bolstering student success and to convey information beyond simple test scores and course grades that parents will find useful in monitoring their children’s success and making nuanced decisions about their education.
Again, transparency is the key to establishing trust among all parties. Last year, 36 states considered more than 100 bills on student data privacy, 30 of which became law (Data Quality Campaign, 2014b). The best ones have measures designed to answer the public’s most pressing and obvious questions about student data such as what exact pieces of information does the education system collect? New laws in Colorado and Missouri call for a public inventory of everything collected by the state. All states should provide this information to parents, and they should support districts and schools at the vanguard of communication with the public. With this transparency established, education leaders will be able to demonstrate not just how student data are being protected but how they’re being used to provide a better education for kids.
The task of communicating with parents often rests with districts, which also have a major role to play in transparency. A first step toward that transparency is ensuring that everyone in each school building is clear on district and state data-use policies and feels supported to use data effectively. Teachers shouldn’t be given an imperative to use data to improve instruction for students and then left in their classrooms to figure out things on their own. Instead, states and districts must support teachers and principals to be data literate. A data literate educator can continuously, effectively, and ethically access, interpret, act on, and communicate multiple types of data from state, local, classroom, and other sources to improve outcomes for students.
States should support teacher data literacy through licensure policy and other means, like ensuring that all districts have the technical infrastructure and training practices to provide high-quality data. But districts should lead the implementation and play an important role in putting a structure around data literacy work and helping schools and teachers figure out what technology is appropriate in classrooms to help students and also to protect privacy. Teachers are the first and strongest communicators with parents about their children’s education, and a school faculty with a clear sense of their district’s programs and policies around data use will be able to share accurate information about the role of effective data use and about where parents can get answers to their questions.
Parent access to data
A 2013 survey showed that 76% of parents think their children’s schools are providing a good or excellent quality of education (AP-NORC, 2013). Parents may trust their local schools and teachers, but many feel at a loss when it comes to making a difference themselves. Nearly all of them (96%) believe parent involvement is very important to their child’s education, but only 41% think they have substantial influence over the education their children receive at school. Access to useful, timely information about their child’s learning will help empower parents to be better advocates for their children. Indeed, two-thirds of parents say that information on changes in student test scores, on teachers’ academic and training backgrounds, and on teachers’ ability to improve student outcomes is helpful in determining school quality. States and districts are responsible for ensuring that parents have that information.
I can relate to the frustration of feeling in the dark about my kids’ progress. (Is my child grasping the material? How can their teachers create lessons appropriate to their strengths and needs? Are they ready for next year? It’s all leading to the ultimate question: Are my kids prepared to graduate high school and go to college or get a job?) Education data can be a powerful tool in answering those questions but only if the information is getting into parents’ hands.
Districts need clear guidance from the state so they can confidently support teachers’ data use, set their own policies, or ensure that schools are safeguarding state data.
The right kind of data — useful, trustworthy, timely, and easy to find — can serve many purposes. Information about children’s progress in school helps parents establish expectations, have meaningful conversations with their children’s teachers, and take action to support their children’s success. Information about their children’s current school and other schools helps parents understand the quality of the schools in their communities where they include indicators such as college remediation rates and the percentage of a high school’s graduates who enroll in a four-year university.
While schools and districts provide some information to parents about their own children’s progress, states also have a role in ensuring that parents have access to data about their children’s academic performance. States have access to limited but critical student data collected by schools. They can use their resources — including technical expertise and financial support — to produce student progress reports and customized tools to help parents make informed decisions about their children’s education. States also can support districts in their efforts to provide parents with information about their children’s academic achievement, helping parents choose the schools, courses, and programs that best meet their needs.
States can supplement the work of smaller, less affluent districts. They can link individual student information from K-12 to postsecondary to the workforce, providing a clearer picture of a student’s experience. They can develop analytic tools such as growth measures to help keep kids on track to graduation. And they can set statewide policies to support good data use. But most parents are not interested in which entity is providing the information — state, district, or school — as long as it’s useful. Choosing a high school, parents want to see graduation rates that reflect reality — for example, that students change schools and districts throughout the year. They want to see how the school’s graduates fare in college and what the enrollment and remediation rates are. Only the state can piece together data from disparate sources to provide this essential information for parent decision making.
Yet states have a ways to go in producing reports meaningful to parents. Most states create student progress reports that provide information that parents and students can use to improve student achievement, but few tailor these reports to meet parent needs. For example, DQC’s Data for Action survey of states found that 41 states produce growth reports, but only 20 produce them with parents in mind (2014a). And what about access to their own children’s data that follows their progress over time? Only 17 states provide that to parents. More focus from the state on providing parents good, timely information will support district efforts to get quality information to parents, especially in smaller districts with fewer resources.
What works?
States and districts are already acting to ensure that parents have access to good information. For example, Georgia encourages data as the starting point for conversations between parents and teachers. The state’s virtual “tunnel” links data from a single state system directly to district-level student information systems and lets district administrators, principals, teachers, and parents access state education data through their district’s existing program. Local teachers and parents have access to detailed longitudinal data to support children in the classroom and at home. Denver Public Schools allows parents to use data to ensure their children are meeting key academic milestones and making progress over time. The district’s Digital Door, a secure and user-friendly data portal, gives parents timely reports that help paint a full picture of their child’s learning experience.
Communication around what data are and how they’re used also is essential. DQC’s infographic Who Uses Student Data? (pp. 40-41 in this issue) illustrates the types of data collected by school systems and where they do (and don’t) travel when they leave the classroom. We developed the infographic largely to help policy makers understand and communicate about laws involving education data, but the response from teachers and parents has been overwhelmingly positive. Parents are hungry for easy-to-understand information that explains just what these systems are and how they work.
Beyond explaining the limitations around what data can be collected, we’ve also found that parents want more specifics about the value of data. Another recent DQC infographic, Ms. Bullen’s Data-Rich Year (http://dataqualitycampaign.org/find-resources/infographic-ms-bullens-data-rich-year), broadens the notion of what data are and shows how educators can use that additional information to improve student outcomes in many ways throughout the school year.
Communicating about exactly what data are and how they’re used is essential to building trust between parents and their school systems. And communicating about the full breadth of tools and resources that can be brought to life by data can go beyond trust and actually build demand for effective data use. Smart data use has the power to transform children’s lives. Parents should know this and have access to data to help make that transformation a reality.
References
AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. (2013). National education survey. Chicago, IL: Author. www.apnorc.org/PDFs/Parent%20Attitudes/AP-NORC%20National%20Education%20Survey%20Topline_FINAL.pdf
Bushaw, W.J. & Calderon, V.J. (2014, October). 46th annual PDK/Gallup poll of the public’s attitudes toward the public schools. Americans put teacher quality on center stage. Phi Delta Kappan, 96 (2), 48-59. www.pdkpoll.org
Data Quality Campaign. (2014a). Data for action 2014. Washington, DC: Author. http://dataqualitycampaign.org/DFA2014
Data Quality Campaign. (2014b). State student data privacy legislation: What happened in 2014, and what is next? Washington, DC: Author. http://dataqualitycampaign.org/find-resources/state-student-data-privacy-legislation-2014
CITATION: Guidera, A.R. (2015). Parents need access to education data — and need to know it’s secure. Phi Delta Kappan, 96 (6), 8-12.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Aimee Rogstad Guidera
AIMEE ROGSTAD GUIDERA is founder and executive director of the Data Quality Campaign, Washington, D.C.
