Superintendent John Huppenthal announced that the Arizona Department of Education (ADE) was awarded a $5 million federal grant to advance the development of Arizona’s statewide longitudinal data system. This funding will help the state and its school districts improve students’ academic achievement by enhancing Arizona’s ability to make data driven education decisions.
Specifically, this grant will be used for the development of a dashboard for ADE’s longitudinal data system, providing consolidation and visualization of data that now is randomly and chaotically embedded in a variety of current IT configurations.
“Nothing is more important than the success of our students and this grant will help create a holistic picture of student progress,” said John Huppenthal, Superintendent of Public Instruction. “This funding will provide one more piece of the puzzle in our ultimate goal of an integrated data system that serves the needs of administrators, teachers, parents and students long into the future.”
Since taking office in 2010, Superintendent Huppenthal has made it a priority to address the failing statewide Student Accountability Information system (SAIS) which has been a significant problem for over a decade. SAIS has caused an enormous burden on our school districts, requiring them to spend countless hours and imposing an enormous human resource burden to reconcile errors generated from ADE’s failing IT system.
Over the last two years, ADE has developed partnerships with the Governor’s office, county superintendents, districts and charter schools, community colleges and the universities to build an efficient technology system that will improve accountability by tracking student academic progress.
Together with funds allocated by the Arizona legislature, this grant will help lay the groundwork for replacing the state’s longitudinal data system and give schools more timely information on student enrollment and academic achievement. Aligning with the Governor’s Arizona Education Reform Plan, it will assist our Arizona’s educators by responding to the increasing demands for timely and actionable data across all K-12 schools and throughout Arizona’s diverse, school choice education landscape.
