HR283

WHEREAS, to ensure all students leave high school ready for college, the state needs to collect and use valuable longitudinal data; and

WHEREAS, longitudinal data is high quality data that can be used to show how individual students perform over time; and

WHEREAS, the benefits of longitudinal data include being able to evaluate the effect of teacher preparation and training programs on student achievement, and the ability to identify consistently higher-performing schools so that educators and the public can learn from their success; and

WHEREAS, to meet the demands for academic progress, educators and policymakers need to have accurate, reliable, and concrete data and need to know whether schools are preparing students for long-term success in college, postsecondary training, and the workplace; and

WHEREAS, state policymakers and educators need a data system that links student records over time and across those databases and uses up-to-date reports to adapt to the unique needs of their students; and

WHEREAS, The Data Quality Campaign is a national collaborative effort to encourage and support state policymakers to improve the collection, availability and use of high-quality education data and to implement state longitudinal data systems to improve student achievement; and

WHEREAS, The Data Quality Campaign has identified ten elements for high quality data systems, and state policy actions required to establish, maintain, and use a quality longitudinal data system; and

WHEREAS, Data Quality Campaign found that Hawaii has a longitudinal data system that has seven of the essential elements, including the ability to track individual students over time, student-level demographic information, the ability to match teachers to students by classroom and subject, and the ability to match student records between the K-12 and higher education systems; and

WHEREAS, The Data Quality Campaign found that Hawaii’s longitudinal data systems did not have three of the essential elements, and that these elements are the ability to know which students have not been tested, information on student performance on college-readiness examinations, such as the SAT, and ACT, and it lacks a system to evaluate data system quality; and

WHEREAS, further analysis into these deficiencies revealed there is no audit system to review the accuracy of data submitted, nor a system for investigating the accuracy of data flagged by the statistical check; and

WHEREAS, it has also been found that no accountability measures are imposed on schools that do a poor job of collecting and submitting complete and accurate information; and

WHEREAS, in order for Hawaii’s longitudinal data system to meets its full potential, it must also have the three elements it presently lacks; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the Twenty-fourth Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2008, that the legislature congratulates the Department of Education for achieving seven of the ten essential elements to start a robust longitudinal data system; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the House of Representatives requests that the Board of Education and the Department of Education improve Hawaii's longitudinal data system by adding on the ability to track which students have not been tested, information on the student performance on college readiness examination, and a system that evaluates data system quality; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Board of Education and the Department of Education develop accountability measures for schools that do a poor job in collecting and submitting complete and accurate information; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Resolution be transmitted to the Board of Education, the Superintendent of Education, the Speaker of the House, the President of the Senate, and the Governor.

	OFFERED BY:	_____________________________

Report Title:

Longitudinal data system; accountability

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES	H.R. NO.	283
TWENTY-FOURTH LEGISLATURE, 2008
STATE OF HAWAII