Dive Brief:

• The Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking will release a report this fall about how federal agencies can best coordinate the use of data while maintaining privacy standards, which could have a substantive impact on whether, and how, education laws regarding data and privacy may change during reauthorization, according to Education Week.
• Shelly Wilkie Martinez, the commission’s executive director, said that the group had received strong pushback at the notion that the federal government should consider ending a ban on “student unit data systems,” which would enable the government to track a student’s data from K-12 throughout their postsecondary education.
• While detailing some preliminary findings at the National Center for Education Statistics’ annual data forum, Martinez said that she was asserting a preference between quantitative and qualitative data, and that any future research must be conducted with concerns to maintaining privacy, rigor, transparency, humility and the understanding that the right people are needed for the job.

Dive Insight:

The commission’s report is coming at in the wake of a recent bipartisan push to utilize federal data to better track student outcomes. A group of Senators has argued that the collection of data could make it easier for students and parents who are considering schools to make better decisions about which college would be the best fit. However, there are critics, including private higher ed institutions, who are concerned about the implications regarding the privacy of the data the government collects on students.

Some critics are also concerned that more robust data collection (and connections of disparate strands of data) could make it easier for the federal government to identify undocumented students if there is a broader push to target students benefiting from the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals executive order. However, data collection like the “student unit data systems” could be beneficial for institutions of lawmakers as the student population in higher education becomes increasingly non-traditional and not wedded to a conventional four-year degree program. Students may attend multiple institutions over a longer period of time, or may opt to pursue a different type of degree or credentialing for the specific education and experience they need.

It can be hard for policymakers to consider possible changes in laws and regulations which such a disparate set of data to draw upon, so it may be necessary to strengthen the government’s ability to collect student data in order to draw stronger conclusions.