Editorial Board
Thomas Purwin, Jersey City Public Schools (NJ)
Jan Petro, Colorado Department of Education
John Kraman, Oklahoma State Department of Education
Michael Hopkins, Rochester School Department (NH)
Ghedam Bairu, National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education
School Courses for the Exchange of Data (SCED) Version 2.0 and Forum Guide to SCED Classification System
School Courses for the Exchange of Data (SCED) is a voluntary, common classification system for prior-to-secondary and secondary school courses that can be used to compare course information, maintain longitudinal data about student coursework, and efficiently exchange course-taking records. SCED includes elements and attributes that identify basic course information and that can be adopted and adapted to meet the specific needs of education agencies. In March 2014, the Forum released SCED Version 2.0 Course Codes and related resources, available on SCED page. SCED Version 2.0 includes
- new and updated course codes, titles, and descriptions in Subject Area 5: Fine and Performing Arts, renamed to Visual and Performing Arts;
- new and updated course codes, titles, and descriptions for Career and Technical Education (CTE) courses in multiple Course Subject Areas;
- new and updated Advanced Placement (AP) courses in multiple Course Subject Areas; • new course attributes that are not part of the SCED Framework, but can be used to provide expanded course information; and
- new Course Subject Area codes for prior-to-secondary courses that match secondary Course Subject Area codes.
The Forum Guide to School Courses for the Exchange of Data (SCED) Classification System accompanies the release of SCED Version 2.0 Course Codes. This new guide includes an overview of the SCED structure and descriptions of the SCED Framework elements, recommended attributes, and best practices for new and existing users on implementing and expanding the use of SCED. Information included in the guide builds upon previous work, including the 2007 document, Secondary School Course Classification System: School Codes for the Exchange of Data and the 2011 prior-to-secondary SCED expansion.
PTAC Guidance: Protecting Student Privacy While Using Online Educational Services: Requirements and Best Practices
The U.S. Department of Education's Privacy Technical Assistance Center (PTAC) has released a new resource, Protecting Student Privacy While Using Online Educational Services: Requirements and Best Practices, to clarify questions related to student privacy and the use of educational technology in the classroom.
Recent advances in technology and telecommunications have dramatically changed the landscape of education in the United States, and today’s classrooms increasingly employ online interactive educational technologies and services to help foster and enhance the learning process. While these technologies have the potential to transform the educational process, they also raise new questions about how best to protect student privacy.
The U.S. Department of Education developed this resource to assist schools and districts in following legal requirements and best practices when evaluating the use of online educational services. The resource addresses a range of concerns regarding the security and privacy of student data, such as: "What does the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) require if personally identifiable information from students' education records is disclosed to a provider?" and, "Do FERPA and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA) limit what providers can do with the student information they collect or receive?"
Forum Working Groups
Alternative Socioeconomic Status (SES) Measures Working Group
The Forum’s Alternative SES Measures Working Group continues with its work to consider alternative measures of socioeconomic status (SES). The document under development provides encyclopedia-type entries for 15 different SES measures and, as such, will help readers better understand the implications of collecting and interpreting a range of SES-related data in education agencies. More specifically, it strives to
- explain the context in which SES data are collected and used in administrative records systems in the education community, including why the National School Lunch Program’s free- and reduced-price meals/lunch (FRPM/FRL) eligibility indicator is becoming progressively less suitable as a proxy for an individual student or family’s SES status;
- describe the benefits, challenges, limitations, and applications of possible SES alternatives, as well as recommended practices for adopting and implementing new SES elements in education agencies and data systems;
- emphasize standard definitions and calculations for SES measures in order to encourage comparability; and
- highlight examples of appropriate use and common misuse of SES measures.
The document focuses on the needs and possible solutions for administrative records in education data systems and does not reflect the full spectrum of opportunities available to the research community. This new Forum resource is expected to be released in spring 2015. More information on the Working Group is available at http://nces.ed.gov/forum/alternative_ses.asp.
College and Career Ready (CCR) Working Group
Many states are working to prepare students to be college and career ready. The CCR Working Group is exploring how to contribute to state efforts to define these terms, and identify how data might contribute to the efforts, including how to measure, collect, store, report, and act on college and career ready data. This work is focused on practical and actionable information and will be grounded in the needs of the Forum members. Thus far, the working group has had several web meetings and an in-person meeting in Washington, DC in May 2014. The group intends to complete a document by fall 2014.
SCED Review Panel
Course offerings and course descriptions evolve over time. SCED must reflect up-to-date course offerings to remain relevant, and updates must be implemented in a manner that maintains the structure and integrity of the established SCED standard. While developing SCED Version 2.0, the SCED Working Group outlined an annual process for reviewing SCED user-recommended updates, working with subject matter experts to implement needed revisions, and publishing updated SCED versions. SCED Version 3.0 revisions are currently in development, and will focus on three main priorities:
- 1. Updating standardized courses, including International Baccalaureate, Advanced Placement, and Project Lead the Way.
- 2. Revising Family and Consumer Sciences Courses and adding new courses.
- 3. Identifying courses from NCES Transcript Studies that should be added to SCED. This includes any courses in the Classification of Secondary School Courses (CSSC) that need to be added to SCED to facilitate NCES research.
The Review Panel is also considering additional recommendations submitted by SCED users for courses in other subject areas. SCED Version 3.0 Course Codes and additional resources will be released on the Forum’s SCED webpage on the SCED page.
Virtual Education Working Group
Rapid advancements and innovations in virtual education are providing education agencies, educators, and students with new opportunities for teaching and learning. In 2006, the Forum published the Forum Guide to Elementary/Secondary Virtual Education, which examined the role of virtual education in the K12 environment, provided a review of terminology, discussed the importance of high-quality virtual education data, and suggested modifying traditional data elements and systems to better capture virtual education data. The virtual education environment has grown in ways unanticipated in 2006, and the Forum convened the Virtual Education Working Group to explore new facets of virtual education and identify new virtual education data collection challenges. The group will develop a new resource that offers best practices for state and local education agencies.
Forum Events
3/6/14 Forum WebEx: Ambient Positional Instability
This WebEx featured research by Bob Boruch, University Trustee Chair Professor of Education and Statistics at the University of Pennsylvania. In his presentation, “Ambient Positional Instability in Education Systems: What We’ve Planned, What We’ve Learned in the First Quarter, and A Request,” Bob discussed the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded research he is undertaking with Joseph Merlino, Andrew Porter, and the API Project Group on ambient positional instability (API) in schools. His presentation highlighted the project’s background, implications, and aims. Questions and observations from Forum members included topics such as options for gathering teacher attrition and mobility data; details about what’s needed from LEA project participants; and sensitivity concerns about making this finely-grained data publicly available.
3/11/14 TECH Virtual Meeting: School Climate Survey
NCES presented a new web-based data collection platform for the School Climate Surveys (SLCS) to the members of the Forum’s Technology Committee (TECH). The SCLS is a series of surveys measuring school climate for teachers, students, and parents in middle and high school. This is a free, standardized, web-based tool, intended to produce comparable results across schools, districts, states, and across the nation. Questions from TECH members included topics such as customizing the survey, linking it to other surveys or assessment results, extracting responses for in-house analysis, the length of the surveys, and the survey field testing process.
4/9/14 Joint Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Appalachia and Forum WebEx: Managing Research Requests in a Local Education Agency (LEA)
This REL Appalachia WebEx featured three speakers. Christina Tydeman from the Hawaii Department of Education discussed the benefits of developing a data access framework and reviewed the core practices and operations discussed in the Forum Guide to Supporting Data Access for Researchers: A Local Education Agency Perspective. Robert Rodosky, Chief Executive Director, Office of Data Management, Planning, and Program Evaluation Services at Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS), led a discussion on his district’s efforts to implement the ideas, tools, and resources provided in the Forum guide. Establishing a way to process data requests has led JCPS to create meaningful research partnerships with education stakeholders. Finally, Julie Kochanek, Director of Research at REL Northeast and Islands (REL NEI), highlighted the Toolkit for Districts Working with External Researchers located on the REL NEI website. Listeners asked questions of the presenters on topics including LEA Institutional Review Boards; requirements that might affect data sharing; and challenging aspects of data access management systems.
4/10/14 Forum Virtual Meeting: Assessment Consortia Updates
This virtual meeting focused on the Race to the Top Assessments. Wes Bruce of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), Jessica McKinney of the U.S. Department of Education, and Brandt Redd of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) provided updates on the assessments to Forum members. Tom Purwin, Vice Chair of the Forum, introduced the panelists and facilitated questions from attendees. Forum members asked several questions on a variety of topics connected to the assessments, such as: test retakes, planning for states as they transition to the new assessments, SBAC field tests, data reporting features for teachers and administrators, future support from the consortia to participating states, and anticipated challenges for districts and states in delivering the assessments.
4/23/14 Forum LEA Virtual Meeting: School Climate Survey
This Forum LEA Virtual Meeting featured updates on the development of the School Climate Surveys (SCLS) research tool at the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Isaiah O’Rear, NCES, facilitated the discussion for Forum LEAs to offer feedback about the planned survey process, focusing on administration, implementation, and execution of the surveys. Forum members asked several questions about the SCLS on topics such as survey software, generating reports, research methods, cost to LEAs, survey length, and survey customizability.
4/28/14 Forum Virtual Meeting: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Indicators
This Forum WebEx highlighted the recent work of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Research Council (NRC) on STEM Indicators. Lee Rabbitt (RI) introduced the presenters, Jessica Mislevy and Barbara Means, both from SRI International. Barbara led the discussion to gather feedback on the STEM Indicators. Forum members offered comments on the process of parsing out information on STEM programs, the relevancy of STEM programs, incorporating School Courses for the Exchange of Data (SCED), and producing generalizable results.
Upcoming: NCES Summer Forum and STATS-DC 2014 Data Conference, “Informed Decision-Making, Powered by Data”
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), in the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES), will sponsor a 2.5-day meeting of the membership of the National Forum on Education Statistics immediately followed by the 2014 NCES STATS-DC Data Conference.
The 2014 NCES STATS-DC Data Conference is an opportunity for professional networking, updates on federal and national activities affecting data collection and reporting, and information about the best new approaches in collecting, reporting, and using education statistics. The conference will include training and business meetings for state Common Core of Data (CCD) and EDFacts data coordinators. There will also be a range of informative sessions targeted toward interests in CCD, data collection, data linking beyond K-12, data management, data privacy, data quality, data standards, data use (analytical), data use (instructional), and fiscal data, as well as information about changes in how the U.S. Department of Education collects and uses data.
The meeting will be July 28 – August 1, 2014, at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, DC. For more information go to the Events page.
Newsletter Information
The Forum Voice is released as an electronic publication.