School districts nationwide are challenged by the
task of collecting, managing and reporting student
information. Without accurate, complete and consistent
information, many school districts have trouble securing
adequate funding, complying with state data reporting
requirements, and planning effectively. Accurate and
complete student information can often be difficult
and time-consuming to research and collect, and missing
and erroneous information can undermine school districts
in their efforts to submit high-quality information
to state education agencies. Ultimately, education
outcomes may suffer.
Certica provides a district information validation
solution that ensures the completeness, accuracy and
consistency of student information—before that
information is submitted to the state and is used
for district planning and operations. For the first
time, district education leaders, information managers
and data administrators can manage the integrity of
student information in a pro-active and systematic
manner.
With Certica’s validation solution, districts
can:
- Have a clear and definitive understanding of all
the potential data problems that could jeopardize
the district’s status with the state.
- Shorten the time it takes to detect and fix data
errors, so better data is being collected—faster.
- Automatically check the accuracy, consistency
and completeness of information submitted by the
schools, to ensure that:
- Students all have one—and only one—student
identifier.
- Student records are not duplicated.
- Students are enrolled in only one school at
a time.
- Student movement between schools is tracked.
- Drop-out information is properly captured.
- Information relating to special programs (such
as English for Speakers of Other Languages)
is properly captured.
- There are reasonable relationships between
codes, dates and other critical information.
- Review summary and detailed reports on the quality
of information across the district and for individual
schools.
- Monitor the quality of information over time,
as schools take steps to improve the quality of
their information.
- Provide detailed information error reports back
to schools via the web, so individual schools can
view the student records that are in error and correct
the information in their student information systems.
- Perform a series of data checks at the district
level, to ensure that data reported to the state
is of the highest quality, and can be submitted
in a timely manner.
Charlotte County Public Schools, a district of 18,000
students on the gulf coast of Florida, struggled to
comply with state data reporting requirements. The
district was unable to achieve an adequate level of
data quality within the state’s reporting timeframe,
and although the district maintains a centralized
student information system (Pearson’s SASI),
data was incomplete, inaccurate and inconsistent.
Many school districts and schools share information
using packaged student information systems. While
these systems provide benefits by keeping information
centralized and facilitating searching and online
data collection, they do not prevent or track data
errors.
Charlotte County Public Schools implemented Certica’s
District Information Validation Solution as an integral
component of their SASI data collection cycle. The
validation process checks the accuracy, completeness
and consistency of data in the SASI system, pinpointing
errors and providing each school with online, self-service
data quality report cards. The initiative has resulted
in Charlotte County achieving better than 99% accuracy
before the data is reported to the state.
|
