Washington State

House of Representatives

Office of Program Research

BILL

ANALYSIS

Education Committee

SSB 5738

This analysis was prepared by non-partisan legislative staff for the use of legislative members in their deliberations. This analysis is not a part of the legislation nor does it constitute a statement of legislative intent.

Brief Summary of Substitute Bill

Directs the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) to review school district reporting requirements and make recommendations to the Legislature regarding which reports should be discontinued, which should be integrated into the longitudinal student data system, and which should be maintained in their current form.
Requires the OSPI to make recommendations as to which federal reporting requirements may be used to meet state reporting requirements in order to avoid duplication.

Background:

School districts are required to report a myriad of information to the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI).

In 2002, the OSPI began developing the Core Student Record System (CSRS), assigning each student a unique student identification number and collecting demographic and other information to respond to federal and state reporting requirements. In 2007, the Legislature directed the OSPI to establish a longitudinal student data system for and on behalf of school districts in the state. The primary purpose of the data system is to better aid research into programs and interventions that are most effective in improving student performance, better understand the state's public educator workforce, and provide information on areas within the educational system that need improvement. This system, named the Comprehensive Education Data and Research System (CEDARS), will replace CSRS for collecting student-level data and teacher and course data.

Pursuant to this same 2007 legislation, the OSPI was specifically tasked with collecting teacher to course data, ie. who is teaching what, using the teacher certification numbers and the student course enrollments using the state student identification numbers. The OSPI was also charged with: (1) coordinating a work group to consider additional data elements to collect from all districts; (2) piloting the collection of additional elements in at least one small and one large district; and, (3) reporting on the feasibility of expanded data collection.

The K-12 Feasibility Study Report was submitted to the Legislature in January of 2009. In the report it is noted that, "Isolated data systems within OSPI and a lack of a data governance structure have led to redundant reporting requirements for school districts. With the integrated CEDARS data warehouse, OSPI believes it can reduce several redundant reporting requirements within the next two years." Redundancies identified in the report include reporting regarding transitional bilingual apportionment, highly qualified teacher status, and career and technical education vocational completers.

Summary of Bill:

Within existing resources, the OSPI must review all annual compliance reports required of school districts and report back to the Legislature with recommendations regarding which reports should be discontinued, which reports should be integrated into the longitudinal student data system, and which should be maintained in their current form. The OSPI must also recommend which federal reporting requirements may be used to meet state reporting requirements in order to avoid duplication. The report to appropriate legislative policy and fiscal committees is due by December 1, 2009.

To assist with this review, the OSPI may reconvene the work group that helped conduct the recent K-12 Data Feasibility Study. Representatives of over 16 different agencies and organizations shall comprise the work group, including representatives from the Washington State Institute for Public Policy, the Professional Educator Standards Board, and the Education Data Center.