EDFacts is a collaborative effort among the U.S. Department of Education (ED), State Education Agencies (SEAs), and industry partners to centralize state reported data into one federally coordinated, K-12 education data repository, located in the U. S. Department of Education. The purpose of EDFacts is to increase the focus on outcomes and accountability rather than process; provide robust K-12 performance data by integrating student achievement and federal program performance data; reduce data collection burden for the Department and the states; and provide data for planning, policy, and management at the federal, state and local levels.

Tom Luce, Assistant Secretary for the Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development at the U.S. Department of Education, was the keynote speaker at the Chief State School Officers' Data Summit in Richmond, Virginia in November. Luce recently joined the Department after serving as chairman of Just for the Kids, a non-profit organization he founded in 1995, and as chairman of the National Center for Educational Accountability, a joint venture of the Education Commission of the States, the University of Texas and Just for the Kids.

In his address to the Chiefs, Assistant Secretary Luce shared with 80 chiefs and senior administrators that the U. S. Department of Education may propose a regulation requiring states to report all data to ED through the Education Data Exchange Network (EDEN), a component of EDFacts. When all state data are collected through EDEN, individual ED program collections will be shut down, and states will submit data once to ED rather than multiple times. Luce also noted that collection consolidation has already begun for some states that submitted sufficient 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 data to EDEN over the past year. Approximately 14 states will not be required to report certain data tables for the Office of Special Education Programs this year, and EDEN data will be used to pre-populate the new web based Consolidated State Performance Report.

The U. S. Department of Education has been implementing significant changes in data collection to reduce state data burden. First, for special education data collections, a discrepancy analysis is being conducted on state submitted special education exiting, child count, and educational environment data in the Data Analysis System (DANS) and the data submitted to EDEN, to move toward an "EDEN only" submission. Fourteen states have already been granted "EDEN only" status to submit their SY 2004-2005 exiting data to EDEN on November 1, 2005. Those states that submit SY 2003-2004 or SY 2004-2005 special education child count or educational environment data by December 16, 2005, will be considered for a future "EDEN only" submission. If the Department determines that the data submitted is comparable, the state will be notified that it may submit the SY 2005-06 child count and/or educational environment data to "EDEN only" for its February 1, 2006 submission.

Also, states will submit SY 2004-2005 data for their Consolidated State Performance Report (CSPR) through the EDEN Electronic Submission System. ED intends to use some of the data submitted by the states through EDEN to pre-populate the applicable CSPR data cells. If a state submits the relevant SY 2004-2005 data through EDEN, the amount of work usually dedicated to the CSPR will be cut significantly. Other data collections, such as the Common Core of Data and the Title III Biennial Data Collection are being examined to reduce overlap and burden.

OMB has approved the Department's SY 2005-2006 Annual Collection of Elementary and Secondary Education Data in EDEN, contingent upon: (1) ED's submission of a timeline to OMB for bringing EDEN collections into conformance with OMB standards for data on race and ethnicity by 12/15/05; (2) an ED report specifying which Paperwork Reduction Act collections are currently covered by EDEN and which collections EDEN intends to include in EDEN, which will be done in the next request for OMB clearance; and (3) an ED memorandum on the EDEN implementation process and progress made in certifying state data for reduction and elimination by 6/15/05. These conditions of clearance show that OMB is an active partner with the Department in determining the nature of state data collections and which will be deleted and reduced to alleviate data reporting burden on the states.

The EDEN Electronic Submission System will be open in January 2006 for the collection of SY 2005-2006 data.

In June 2005, the U. S. Department of Education awarded the PBDMI Operations, Maintenance, and Enhancement (OME) contract to Perot Systems signaling a transition of the EDEN project from the development phase to operations. Since the award, Perot Systems has nearly completed the transfer of knowledge from PBDMI's previous contract activities to the new contractor. Core activities in the Perot contract, which the Department may exercise through options, includes:

• Data Definition: Defining the data requirements of SEAs, ED, and other partners, conducting data needs assessments, gap analysis, and creating a plan for enterprise data collection.
• Data Infrastructure Support: Developing processes to enable EDEN data users to fully use the EDEN K-12 data.
• Data Acquisition: Assisting in acquiring and processing core and supplemental data, while minimizing burden on data suppliers.
• Data Usage: Providing federal program users with training and timely, accurate data to make informed business decisions.
• Partner/Customer Support: Providing significant technical and subject matter support to state data partners and federal program customers of EDEN.
• Knowledge Management: Capturing and processing EDEN information, using technology to secure information according to government standards and disseminate EDEN documents for efficient and effective knowledge based use.
• Capacity Building: Investigating potential process and technology improvements to more fully develop ED's K-12 business intelligence.
• Platform Infrastructure Support: Ensuring that EDEN's data is secure, accurate, and available.

The Strategic Accountability Service and the Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development are administering this contract, working closely with the Office of the Chief Information Officer. This contract encourages greater uniformity and consistency across the EDEN system; decreases overlap, duplication, and fragmentation; improves partner support to SEAs submitting data; and advances EDEN's analytical and reporting capabilities for SEAs and ED staff, while enhancing data quality and capacity building. Consolidating the work of multiple contractors into one contract is expected to substantially reduce costs.

Two EDFacts/EDEN training sessions were held for state EDEN data managers in Denver, Colorado (EDEN West) and Washington, DC (EDEN East). These meetings informed new and old state staff on the status of EDEN data collections and analyses; provided information on collection consolidations, metadata documentation, and changes in EDEN file specifications; facilitated the sharing of successful submission practices and solutions to common submission challenges; and provided next steps in the collection process and state needs for training and technical assistance. The Perot contractor team was introduced to state staff and led several sessions at both meetings.

On September 30, 2005, the Department completed a three-year development effort called PBDMI (the Performance Based Data Management Initiative). The purposes of PBDMI were to (1) develop a web-based system to collect K-12 educational data from the states [the Education Data Exchange Network (EDEN)], and (2) develop the EDEN Survey Tool to collect supplementary information from a specific group of respondents, such as LEAs or schools.

The Education Data Exchange Network (EDEN) is a centralized, coordinated repository of state reported, elementary and secondary educational data residing at the U. S. Department of Education.

• EDEN houses data on over 100 data elements.
• EDEN data is available at the state, local educational agency, and school levels.
• EDEN provides data on demographics, program participation, federal funding, implementation and outcomes.

EDFacts is an initiative of the U. S. Department of Education, the State Education Agencies, and other members of the national education community to use the consolidated, state reported data to:

• Increase the focus on education outcomes and accountability rather than process.
• Provide robust K-12 performance data by integrating student achievement and federal program performance data.
• Reduce data collection burden for the Department and the states.
• Provide data about outcomes at the federal, state, and local levels for federal and state planning, policy, and program management.

The EDEN Survey Tool—developed as part of the Performance Based Data Management Initiative (PBDMI)—is a web-based survey capability that will be used by Department of Education staff to collect data not already collected through the Education Data Exchange Network (EDEN) system. The EDEN Survey Tool is intended to obtain data that supplements, not duplicates, the EDEN data collection from states.

Last summer, the Department experienced technical challenges with the EDEN Survey Tool as it was used in the Civil Rights Data Collection. Those problems were resolved and the Survey Tool can be accessed through the U. S. Department of Education site: http://www.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/pbdmi/surveytool/index.html.

When fully functional, ED offices will administer data collection surveys that shorten collection processes, lower costs, and reduce the number of collection burden hours for respondents. Survey respondents, using IDs and passwords, will log onto the Survey Tool site to complete their work. Surveys will have a common format and navigation across surveys will be similar. In addition to collecting information for the Civil Rights Data Collection, the Survey Tool is expected be used in the coming year for a Charter School Survey.

The Civil Rights Data (CRD) collection is a mandatory collection that has been administered by Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) every two years since 1968. The survey collects data on approximately 6,000 school districts and 60,000 schools. This year, in partnership with EDFacts, the survey was administered via the web with a tool developed jointly by EDFacts and OCR. The tool was developed to allow respondents mode choices of paper, web, CD and mainframe, as well as the option to pre-populate data cells using already existing EDEN data.

		"My attitude is best expressed by an old Texas saying: 'In God we trust; all others bring data.' This is important in so many ways. Policymakers must know which areas need the most immediate help. Parents must know exactly how their own child's school is doing; that is their right.... Data is important in another way. It allows us to solidly ground our policies in the very best and latest scientific information."    Margaret Spellings    Secretary of Education    U.S. Department of Education

The 19th Annual MIS Conference sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and the Florida Department of Education will be held on February 22-24, 2006 at the Doubletree Hotel in Orlando, Florida. This conference promises three concentrated days of information about best practices, innovative ideas, current issues, and practical how-to advice about management information systems for K-12 education. The MIS Conference brings together people who work with information collection, management, transmittal, and reporting in school districts and state education agencies. For registration information on this conference, contact Vivian Chiu at Westat (240-453-2903).

The Department of Education salutes the commitment and performance of the following states in providing data to EDEN (as of November 30, 2005).

The Department continues to collect data from the States for SY 2003-2004 and SY 2004-2005, and will begin collecting SY 2005-2006 data in January 2006.

Priority One and Priority Two Submissions Completed School Year 2003-2004

Delaware, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Wyoming

Priority One Submissions Completed School Year 2003-2004

Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming

Priority One Data Submissions School Year 2004-2005

Iowa and South Dakota

Data Submissions School Year 2004-2005

Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming