Feeling Data Driven?

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No one in DJUSD with anything to do with students has been spared a dramatic transformation of his or her work life as it relates to our management of student data. What began as a rumor and a rumble three years ago that our student information system (SIS) of long standing, SASI, would soon retire has grown into a work place with new systems with odd names like Zangle and DataDirector, plus a swirl of acronyms sufficient to choke a horse, such as CALPADS, FERPA, CSIS, and lest we forget, NCLB.

      The purpose of this article is not to explain this new world in detail, but to offer some background as we all work to wrap our professional minds around a changing environment. An increasingly digitized world defined by data of various types is not news. Whether in our relationships to doctors, bankers, or cell phone providers, the data world is in a state of flux and rapid growth, creating a fair degree of anxiety for most of us over age twenty or so. Much of that anxiety has to do with the question most of us hold, “What are these unseen people going to do with all this information they have about me?” We all know misuse of data can have tragic consequences by means of stolen data or mistaken identities, but data can also provide insight into the path of a hurricane or even the trajectory of a student on the wrong educational path. What circumstances determine whether data will be used for good or ill?

      All data gathered for a certain purpose becomes part of a collection called a database. Without doubt, your personal information is already part of numerous databases in many contexts, some highly regulated, some not regulated at all. We would like to think of humanity as guided by only the highest of principles at all times, with databases used only for the benefit of those whose information is held there. It’s the shortcomings of humankind, however, that present us with the challenge of managing data in such a way it can be used for good without presenting undue risk to all.

      I remember when my own children were babies, our “electronic baby monitor” allowed me to sense their needs from another room, eavesdropping really. It was a kind of data collecting that provided a certain creative freedom, enhancing my experience and improving my performance as a parent. However, when my neighbor installed the same baby monitor on the same frequency, I instantly found myself in accidental violation of numerous privacy laws. There were statutory boundaries in place that protected my neighbor, boundaries that became quite inconvenient to my baby monitoring efforts until we could iron out the technical issues. The benefits of the technology brought increased responsibility on my part.

      As we in education struggle with complicated social and curricular demands coupled with shrinking resources, the potential exists for some students to disappear from our achievement radar. In a global economy in which the life success of each child contributes to societal health, it is vital we not let that happen. How wonderful it would be if we, as educators, could develop an extension to the electronic baby monitor which, later in a child’s life, would give us insight as to when that child is in educational distress? Well, we have those tools now, and exciting opportunities to enhance our work life and improve our outcomes are at hand. With the DataDirector system, benchmark testing and language arts assessments are tools we are just now being deployed in DJUSD. Much of this new data has been developed and implemented under the influence of landmark federal legislation, No Child Left Behind, or NCLB.

      But what of the dark side? What happens to all this data we collect, who can use it and see it, and for what purpose can it be used? If you are a doctor or a hospital, the acronym HIPA is a daily companion, standing for the Health Information Protection Act of 1999. As a banker, your info-world is ruled by the Financial Information Privacy Act, or FIPA, of 1998. And as educators, our data world begins its regulatory journey with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, of 1974, one of the oldest pieces of privacy legislation on the books. With the advent of the Internet, invented the same year this legislation was passed, mountains of student data move with the click of a mouse, with state laws and board of education policies struggling to keep up. California Ed Code reduces student data access to general language providing for data access for professionals with a need to know for purposes of instruction. As data collection provides districts with enhanced ability to develop longitudinal information for the sake of instructional design, there is increasing sensitivity to data access and security in light of FERPA restrictions. In many respects, the demands of NCLB to detail individual student performance present direct challenges to the letter and intent of FERPA which seeks to inhibit data distribution. It is left to school districts to resolve the tension between these two powerful pieces of legislation.

      Our student information system, known as Zangle in DJUSD, is organized into thousands of tables, each with a dedicated purpose in the database.  Teacher gradebook tables hold easily edited data and are readily accessed through minimal security measures, providing customizable calculations throughout a marking period.  Those tables exist outside of protected tables holding historical archive information.  As any site secretary can tell you, the tables dedicated to record keeping and grade archives are not easily accessible, by design out of respect for the regulatory framework in which we work.  Having been a student recently myself, I would want the grades given by my professors to remain intact, and to have some assurance that my data is private and carefully preserved.  If a professor of mine wakes in the middle of the night and realizes the A grade I earned last year should, in his latent conscience, be a B-, I would expect that professor to have to jump through a number of tiny hoops to make that happen, including seeking approval for that grade change from a dean or other administrator who will, quite assuredly, be getting an angry call from me regardless. 

       The ethics surrounding student data management in DJUSD is nested in the understanding that student data merits the full protections stated and implied in the law. In particular, “mark reporting windows” and subsequent access to student marks are built on the idea that the person who is recording data to make a judgment of a student performance is collecting data during an institutionally defined time period.  Student grades should accurately indicate performance during that period for the purpose of guiding student development by parents and educators in that student’s life.  It is expected that teachers have made their assessments and calculations in advance of the reporting window, so the act of reporting is one of entering carefully considered data into a secured environment.  Those who use the Zangle Gradebook press a “Post to Report Card” button to move the data in their editable gradebook tables into the grade-reporting tables for use on the report card and eventual storage in secure archives.  Those who do not use Zangle Gradebook use fields designed for entering marks directly into those secure reporting tables.  The law considers all student data as it considers personal medical or financial data; of high value, subject to limited access and worthy of protection from unauthorized viewing or editing.

       For individuals it can be daunting to know exactly where one fits in a secure-data environment. Who carries the key to the safe deposit vault at the bank? Which hospital employee can check the state of my cholesterol? We all value data security, but there exist at least three perspectives on those values. The perspective of the subject of the data (or his/her parents, in our case) is quite distinct from that of those of us who want to use that data. Both of those points of view differ from that of those responsible for regulatory compliance, so policies around data use and storage are balancing acts between those three very diverse perspectives. No single policy can fully satisfy the deepest concerns of all three sets of stakeholders, as their data interests are quite distinct.

      While trust is at the root of all data access policy, it is not a question of whether the district trusts individual people to treat data ethically.  It is very much a matter of whether we have an unimpeachable data-keeping process serving the best interests of all parties.  Consider this illustration:  Let’s say a certain six grader is trying to get into a competitive 7^th grade class based on academic performance, performance demonstrated by academic history.  Let’s also say that all grade records for that child are held in a blue cumulative student record folder in a filing cabinet in the office, accessible by all office and credentialed staff, and potentially subject to editing at any time.  If I were a parent of another child who was not successful in his/her bid for placement in that competitive program, could I be confident there was no data fraud in that system, giving another child undue advantage over mine?  Any parent or lawyer could argue the data was entirely insecure, and no confidence could be placed in the security of the data driving a placement determination. 

      Another example of establishing a trustworthy process would be a parent who is unhappy with a grade they think does not represent the entire marking period.  If the reporting window opened six weeks before the end of the marking period, what system-rooted assurance is there that a grade wasn’t given based on long-outdated performance?  It is also true that assessment or historical data held in archives is far less hack-able than grades in teacher-editable tables, which are no less secure than that blue folder in the filing cabinet.  In fact, as computer-based instructional data is generally password-protected and even web-based, it is much easier for students to obtain password information and alter records online than it is to invade a workspace where physical records are stored. That lower level of mark-entry security is offset by a teacher’s ability to audit data at the reporting period before it is entered into academic history, held in a secured, limited-access area of the database.

      With attention to the big picture of data use and student performance, we have an opportunity previously unknown to the generations of educators who came before us. We can craft precise instruments to determine what we need to teach, and to whom. We can see, in real time, if our practice is effective, with our students’ outcomes a closer reflection of our professional intent. Even with all the challenges, it’s an exciting time to be teaching.

 References

• Privacy Rights Clearing House – Guide for Parents and Adult-Age Students

• California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System (CalPADS)

• Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)