Through the support of previous State Longitudinal Data System (SLDS) grants, DPI developed and maintains the Wisconsin Information System for Education (WISE), a wide-ranging data system that provides Wisconsin educators with high-quality, relevant student data to support administrative reporting, research, data inquiry, and continuous improvement planning.

This proposal will integrate several key systems into the WISE suite, including our Education Choice systems, the primary mechanism for distributing the vast majority of our school aids, and the underlying enterprise database which feeds nearly all information systems at DPI. These systems and tools are all inextricably linked from a business process flow, and the integration upgrades will benefit Local Education Agency (LEA) and DPI staff by streamlining efforts and addressing data quality issues that exist due to the current non-integrated approach.

In addition, we propose to use funds to further institutionalize the partnership structures established between DPI and UW-Madison through the 2015 SLDS grant by creating a working group of researchers, evaluators, and practitioners. This group will leverage the new data infrastructure elements and relationships to address critical problems of practice identified by DPI and Wisconsin educators engaged in continuous improvement.

Expected Outcomes:

1. An upgraded Enterprise System architecture and technical infrastructure that dynamically accommodates choice organizations and associations.
2. A School Directory software application that uses modern application technology development tools to record agency data and contacts.
3. A Public School Open Enrollment Transportation Reimbursement software application to allow low-income parents participating in the Public School Open Enrollment Program to submit claims for transportation reimbursement.
4. A software application for parents to submit an application for the Public School Open Enrollment Program that eliminates the current process of paper applications and manual data entry by LEAs.
5. Software applications and tools for local education agency personnel to review the quality of student fiscal data compiled.
6. Completion, by our research partners, of 16-24 small and specific research and evaluation projects based on questions posed by DPI related to data infrastructures for choice schools, DPI's research agenda, and specific needs expressed by Wisconsin educators.