Picture this moment in world history. The year is 1200 B.C. Nations are independent of one another. Each nation has developed its own culture complete with customs, dress, and language. Even though nations exist next to each other, communication between them is difficult.
Now enter the Phoenicians. The Phoenicians develop an alphabet to document their trade among the various seaports. As the Phoenicians move from seaport to seaport, they expose the various nations to this alphabet. Over time, it becomes the common alphabet. The ability to read using the same pictures or letters leads to the ability to communicate across nations. The world becomes able to innovate faster because they can share ideas about what works and what doesn’t work.
Fast forward to 2009. State education systems are independent of one another. Each state has developed its own data system(s) complete with elements and definitions. Even though states exist next to each other, electronic communication between states (and often within states) is difficult.
Now enter education stakeholders in the field. The education stakeholders develop the Common Education Data Standards (CEDS), the common language for education data systems. The ability to link data or pass data from system to system based on the common CEDS language leads to the ability to innovate faster because educators, administrators, policy makers, and researchers can share ideas about what works and what doesn’t work. In essence, CEDS is the common Phoenician alphabet to education data systems.
What does this have to do with me?
It is easy to think education data is something that happens in a dark basement and is relevant only to computer and data aficionados. But, in the last ten years that line of thinking has shifted. Data is all around us. Whether you are a student, a parent, a teacher, an administrator, or work for the school district or state, education data is a part of your life.
Education data encompasses everything, from what classes a student takes with which teachers, and what special education needs a student has and how the school is meeting those needs, to a student’s assessment scores, to information about a student’s allergies, to the school calendar, to the school’s finances.
And this information is used every day to determine the best way to teach a child given a particular set of circumstances. For instance, without data to support their findings, a school could not evaluate whether the money they poured into an emerging teaching strategy, designed to help students who are frequently absent due to health conditions, really worked.
What does a common language fix?
When data is collected in separate systems that don’t ‘talk’ to each other, analyses becomes difficult. For example, if two disparate systems have fields that don’t match up or ‘align’ with each other, it would be extremely difficult to determine how a student in the teacher’s gradebook matches up with the student in the health clinic’s database.
In the teacher’s gradebook, a student is listed as "Johnson Quinn Public." In the health clinic’s database, that student is listed as "Johnny Public," without any middle name.
A computer cannot automatically know that Johnson Quinn Public is the exact same student as Johnny Public. A computer can be set to pull ‘near matches’ based on a set of parameters, but either way, resolution requires human interaction with the systems. Imagine that multiplied by every child in a school, school district, or state.
To help with efficiencies and to make information readily available for program evaluation, teaching strategies, and overall school improvement, the school would ideally use an integrated data system where information about a single student’s school performance could be linked to health information, finance information, and school administration information. At a minimum, though, the school would need the ability to link the data from the various systems. Both options would benefit from a common language such as CEDS.
The scenarios outlined thus far are inefficient and resource intensive. The inefficiencies are exacerbated when moving from a single school to a school district to a state, which can have upwards of 6,000,000 students. Using CEDS, the states can efficiently integrate data into a single system, thereby reducing the strain on resources.
The benefit of CEDS is that it is developed by education stakeholders – the educators, the administrators, the policy makers, and the researchers. CEDS is open to anyone without the requirement of membership or fees because the goal of CEDS is to build a common language based on user’s needs and direct feedback. CEDS reflects a common understanding of how education data should be defined. And CEDS spans from preschool to K12 to postsecondary and into the workforce (P20W).
We're using a common language. Now what?
CEDS offers more than just a common language.
- The CEDS Align tool can help education data stakeholders ‘translate’ current data elements and definitions to CEDS.
- CEDS also offers the Connect tool with a library of policy questions, research questions, and reporting metrics already operationalized so you can learn from how others have tackled the same question.
- CEDS myConnect can then help you translate the Connection back into the language of your data system.
- And CEDS offers the CEDS data warehouse – a star schema SQL database you can implement for all forms of data reporting.
To learn more about CEDS, visit the CEDS homepage. You can explore the various features of CEDS by clicking through the interactive CEDS Initiative graphic.
Any questions? Reach out to us anytime.
