The SLDS team produces various types of products to capture best practices from the field and meet the evolving needs of the community. This publications page includes Best Practices, Webinar Summaries, and State Spotlights. Select from the bar below to explore our growing library. Please contact Rosemary Collins with suggestions for future products.
Best Practice Guides provide lessons learned and targeted strategies to help states overcome common obstacles to creating a high-quality SLDS.
Statewide standardization of course codes is becoming increasingly prevalent as states conduct new kinds of analyses, implement the Common Core State Standards, and link student and teacher data. Standardized course codes improve the state’s and its districts’ ability to gather long-term data on courses taken and teacher performance, while measuring the impact of both on student learning. This product provides best practices and lessons learned offered by Alaska, Ohio, and Maryland regarding the implementation of statewide standardized course codes.
Download 
(1.17 MB)
Data governance is necessary for creating clear roles and responsibilities for each member of any project team: it establishes responsibility for data, organizing program area/agency staff to collaboratively and continuously improve data quality through the systematic creation and enforcement of policies, roles, responsibilities, and procedures. This SLDS Best Practices Brief provides an overview of data governance and discusses the work of and effective practices from three states experienced with P-20W data governance.
Download (4.10 MB)
Most state education agencies use vendors in support of their education data projects. Establishing and maintaining successful state-vendor relationships are key in the cost effective creation of high quality products. In a call sponsored by the SLDS Grant Program, representatives from three states shared experiences and offered tips on establishing proactive communication, building strong relationships, and maintaining flexibility with vendors to ensure successful outcomes.
Download (3.31 MB)
Critical to the longevity and ultimate success of an SLDS is the acquisition of funding or other resources from multiple sources of support. This SLDS Best Practices Brief summarizes the tips and lessons learned shared by representatives from Arkansas, Colorado, and Texas on a monthly SLDS topical webinar facilitated by Corey Chatis of the SLDS State Support Team. Specific topics covered include supporter identification, relationship initiation, and effective communication to ensure engagement and sustained support.
Download (2.6 MB)
Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, and Oregon participated in a discussion with Robin Taylor of the SLDS State Support Team around stakeholder communications. The SLDS Best Practices Brief captures the strategies, best practices, and lessons learned from these states’ experiences.
Download (2.6 MB)
SLDS Spotlights highlight a one or several state’s achievements, products, and topics related to SLDS.
Engaging with local K12 stakeholders is critical to ensuring the successful development of statewide longitudinal data systems (SLDS), as well as to improving utility and sustainability. Involving staff from multiple districts helps to identify, align, and leverage existing resources. This SLDS Spotlight discusses the strategies used and lessons learned by Virginia, Oregon, Iowa, and Washington, DC through efforts to engage with stakeholders.
Download (596 KB)
An early warning system is a data-based tool that helps predict which students are on the right path towards eventual graduation or other grade-appropriate goals. Through such systems, stakeholders at the school and district levels can view data from a wide range of perspectives and gain a deeper understanding of student data. This SLDS Spotlight discusses the development and use of early warning systems in Maine, Massachusetts, and South Carolina and offers tips for states interested in implementing one.
Download (1.46 MB)
A regional service center (RSC) can be a significant link between state and local education agencies (SEAs and LEAs), by performing a wide range of duties such as organizing, cleaning, and analyzing data; and designing professional development programs. This SLDS Spotlight discusses the functions of RSCs in Iowa, Oregon, and New York, including the states’ relationships with the centers and the benefits that result.
Download (668 KB)
Nationwide, states are expanding K12 education data collection to include pre-kindergarten through higher education and workforce data, known as P-20W data. The state of Mississippi developed a P-20W data model to guide the development of an SLDS. In an SLDS Grant Program webinar, representatives from Mississippi State University’s National Strategic Planning and Analysis Research Center (nSPARC) outlined a process for building a data model that integrates P-20W data for the purpose of tracking education outcomes.
Download (429 KB)
Guides provide in-depth knowledge about an SLDS-related topic, and include strategies, advice, and tips from states.
An increasing number of states are developing and implementing growth models for teacher evaluation and school accountability purposes, student comparison, and federal compliance. This SLDS Guide on growth models contains strategies, best practices, and challenges shared by a working group—consisting of state representatives from Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Along with the knowledge shared by the working group, this guide describes the purpose of each growth model used by the working group states, and data elements required.
Download (3.33 MB)
Issue Briefs explore a range of issues related to the effective use of longitudinal education data for research.
To illustrate P-20W data governance, this document outlines a project that many states are currently or will soon be working on: determining the readiness of students who complete high school to enter into postsecondary education and the workforce. This policy question is broken down and applied to each level of the P-20W data governance pyramid to show each group’s role in determining how to respond to this key policy question.
Download (1.66 MB)
Administrative data collected for education-related purposes differ in important ways from research-ready datasets. For this reason, analysis conducted using administrative data also requires a slightly different approach. As with preparing the data, additional work may be required, but this extra work will also allow for powerful and actionable analysis. This brief offers analysts some best practices for effectively using longitudinal administrative data for education research.
Download (213 KB)
While statewide longitudinal data systems (SLDSs) have provided state education agencies and local education agencies (SEAs and LEAs) with valuable data for education research, because administrative data files are not created specifically for representative longitudinal research, there may be multiple steps involved in preparing the data in order to make it “research ready.” This issue brief (and Issue Brief 4) share important information about the SLDS data collection process that is relevant for analysis and may be of particular interest to researchers outside of the education agencies.
Download (207 KB)
Statewide longitudinal data systems (SLDSs) can provide state and local education agencies (SEAs and LEAs) with a wealth of research data. However, education agency expertise and resources are primarily focused on preparing state and federal reports and conducting analyses for state government, local school boards, and other stakeholders. SEAs and LEAs also value more generalizable education research that benefits from the combined expertise of agency staff and interdisciplinary education researchers. This issue brief draws on discussions with SEA and LEA staff and applied researchers to share helpful advice on forming effective partnerships.
Download (321 KB)
Webinars provide states a forum to demonstrate SLDS projects, share new SLDS platforms, and discuss major issues affecting system development and use.
This webinar detailed two states’ approaches to identity management. Neal Gibson (Arkansas Department of Education’s Arkansas Research Center) and Bob Swiggum (Georgia Department of Education) discussed types of stakeholders served, authentication approaches used, user roles and access rights, district involvement, and privacy and security issues.
Download (962 KB)
The "Head Start and SLDS: Getting to Know You" webinar featured presentations from states on how Head Start fits into their statewide longitudinal data systems (SLDS), including the goals of SLDSs and how they align with Head Start; an overview of Head Start and Early Head Start; a discussion of which data are collected, aggregated, and analyzed through Head Start; and case studies from Utah and Missouri.
Download (800 KB)
This webinar addressed innovative use of local early childhood data. The Director of Assessment and Accountability for the Tulsa Community Action Project (CAP) presented CAP’s efforts to gather classroom quality data, child outcomes, and health and workforce data, as well as CAP’s efforts to link these data to area public schools' data systems. The Early Childhood Director for Boston Public Schools presented Boston’s efforts to track school readiness assessment data, classroom quality data, workforce data, and child outcomes from pre-K to the K12 system, as well as how the district has used these data to influence policy and program development.
Download (361 KB)
The Head Start Reauthorization Act of 2007 called for states to create Early Childhood Advisory Councils (ECACs). This webinar focused how ECACs interface with the collection and publication of early childhood data. Rachel Demma from the National Governors Association discussed state activities around data and how these efforts align with State ECACs, Elliot Regenstein of EducationCounsel LLC talked about Illinois’s work with their State ECAC, and Debra Andersen of Smart Start Oklahoma discussed her state’s progress in incorporating health data into its data efforts.
Download (499 KB)
This webinar addressed what states need to know in order to implement legal solutions for sharing data across early childhood programs, and how states can implement a coordinated data system when commonality has not yet been sufficiently addressed. Speakers include a representative of the Early Childhood Data Collaborative, who addressed "The State of States' Early Childhood Education Data Systems Efforts," and representatives from Pennsylvania, who shared their state's data sharing efforts through Pennsylvania's Enterprise to Link Information for Children Across Networks (PELICAN).
Download (446 KB)
This webinar focused on how states can collect preschool ("P") data when a state does not have a "P" or when a state’s "P" falls within many programs. Representatives from the Early Childhood Data Collaborative, the National Institute for Early Education Research, and Hawaii's Good Beginnings Alliance presented information to help guide states as they develop preschool data systems, which can then be integrated with K-12, postsecondary, and workforce data.
Download (396 KB)
Early childhood data are a key component in developing robust P-20W data systems. This webinar focused on how states can design early childhood data systems that a) address key issues, on the local, state, and national levels; b) are improvement-driven as opposed to compliance-driven; and c) can be coordinated with K-12 and other key program data. Elizabeth Laird spoke about the work of the Early Childhood Data Collaborative (ECDC), and Elliot Regenstein of EducationCounsel LLC and the Illinois Early Learning Council reviewed the process of developing early childhood (EC) data systems in three states.
Download (319 KB)
