Texas has been awarded a three-year $18.2 million federal grant to build upon the state’s efforts to design and implement the Texas Student Data System, a next generation longitudinal data system.
The Texas Student Data System will deliver relevant and actionable data to parents and educators to continually improve student performance while alleviating the data collection burden on school districts and improving data quality.
The Texas Legislature and the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation have previously committed significant resources to modernize the state’s public education data management system to enable Texas to examine students’ progress from early childhood, beyond schooling and into their careers. To date, more than 2,000 Texas educators have participated in defining requirements for the Texas Student Data System.
Texas is one of 20 states to be awarded a Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS) grant, funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. The state will receive the second highest grant amount in the nation. New York will receive the most with $19.7 million.
“Texas has made a tremendous commitment to providing more timely and useful information to teachers, principals and parents to improve student achievement,” said Robert Scott, Commissioner of Education. “This is the next step in our ongoing efforts to ensure that Texas students and educators have every resource available to succeed.”
SLDS grants were authorized by the Educational Technical Assistance Act of 2002, and the first grants were awarded in 2005. Last year, Congress expanded the program to include not only K-12 data systems but also to provide links with pre-K, postsecondary and workforce data. The 2009 ARRA grantees were selected in a competition based on the merit of the applicants’ proposals and the funding available for the program.
In total, $250 million was awarded this year through the SLDS grant competition. For further information about the Texas Student Data System, please visit www.TexasStudentDataSystem.org.