Frequently Asked Questions

The frequently asked questions (FAQs) section contains questions and answers on areas of general interest to stakeholders.

The FAQs will be updated regularly based on questions received from future stakeholder interactions. Click on a subject heading below to view questions and answers relating to your selection. Links throughout the answers will guide you to further information on our Web site. If your question does not appear below, please submit your question via the Feedback page.

Topic Index

 

Texas Student Data System (TSDS) Solution

What is TSDS?

TSDS is the Texas Education Agency’s (TEA) vision for an enhanced statewide longitudinal data system that will streamline the district data collection and submission process; equip educators with historical, timely, and actionable student data to drive classroom and student success; and integrate data along the P–20 continuum for improved decision making.

Will this system be part of the accountability system?

Yes. In addition to the Public Education Information Management System (PEIMS) redesign project (approved by the Texas Legislature in 2007), which will be completed in 2010, several of the planned TSDS system component enhancements will improve the PEIMS collection, submission, and reporting process.

How will the TSDS solution decrease the data collection burden on districts?

The TSDS solution will upgrade the existing state data collection and exchange structure so that resource-constrained districts can use statewide data standards that ease the transformation of student-level data. The proposed voluntary state-sponsored student information system (SIS) will standardize the data collection and storage process, provide a more flexible platform for future changes to data standards, and assure PEIMS compliance by all participating districts. The District Connections Database (DCD) will enable timely and actionable student data through voluntary data submissions from independent school district source applications or from a state-sponsored SIS. A certified PEIMS data store will streamline the state data submission and reporting process and will greatly improve how extractions and validations are performed today by alleviating the data manipulations and calculations that must be performed to submit PEIMS information. See the TSDS Schematic overview for more information on the solution and benefits.

What are the system’s benefits to districts? How will this solution benefit other stakeholders in Texas?

The following briefly outlines stakeholder benefits of the TSDS solution:

  • Teachers will have access to early indicators through dashboard tools making them more effective in creating targeted and effective student education plans and identifying interventions, which will improve student performance;
  • School administrators and campus leaders will use the DCD and dashboard tools for quick and user-friendly access to student data, which will help guide staff and time resources, teaching, course assignments, and testing;
  • Parents and students will be able to use the tools to monitor academic progress and to inform decisions about courses and programs;
  • District administrators can use the DCD and dashboard tools to improve curriculum and practice both systemically and in specific schools, allocate teacher and staff resources, and provide professional development opportunities. Administrative time and expenses will also be reduced through streamlined data collection and submission processes;
  • PEIMS coordinators will benefit from reduced administrative time and cost that is currently required to collect, validate, and submit PEIMS data to TEA;
  • Education Service Centers will be able to provide expanded professional development opportunities, offer new training and support in the use and application of the SIS and data tools, and leverage existing applications that are complementary to the DCD and dashboard tools;
  • School board members (state and local) will have more timely and relevant data to more effectively manage resources and staff and evaluate effective programs, textbooks, and interventions;
  • Governor and legislators will be able to create policies and measure the impact of new and existing policies to support continuous improvement and effectively allocate state resources;
  • Chief state school officers will be able to shape education policies and programs, allocate state education agency resources to help districts, improve the quality and timeliness of compliance data collection and reporting, and collaborate with Education Service Centers (ESCs) to create professional development around proper use of data;
  • Postsecondary educators and state higher education executives can identify necessary courses, effective transition strategies, and staffing resources to meet the needs of incoming students;
  • Advocacy, improvement, and research organizations will improve the ability to assess the impact of policies, programs, and practices; and Other public agencies serving children will better understand the relationship between their services and educational outcomes.

How will educational system vendors be impacted?

Through the adoption of uniform data standards, the burden of costly modifications of software to comply with state reporting requirements will be reduced.

Who will pay for the system development costs?

Funding for projects that are under way will come from several sources including TEA, current and pending statewide longitudinal grants from the U.S. Department of Education, and support from other outside sources, including recent funding from the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation. Additional funding will be required to implement the full TSDS vision; however, the system is being designed to produce sustainable and positive outcomes based on the funding that has been committed. See the TSDS Overview for more information on funding sources and uses.

How will you incorporate users’ perspective on the TSDS solution including the SIS and DCD reporting tools?

Over the last 18 months, TEA has conducted detailed background research and extensive consultation with more than 1,000 education stakeholders across the state through various channels, including interviews and surveys with districts and charters, regional ESCs serving districts, and SIS vendors. In the spring of 2010, TEA and ESCs hosted a series of regional forums and webinars to solicit feedback from educators on the DCD and voluntary statewide SIS requirements. TEA will continue to hold regular forums with stakeholders throughout the course of the project. The TSDS web site also can be used at any time throughout the project to provide feedback.

What reporting will be available to the public?

TSDS will improve the availability of data to the public in compliance with Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) regulations. While the DCD dashboards and reports will be limited to district use, enhancements will be made to existing state wide reports and new reports will be created using the Texas P-20 Public Education Information Resource (TPEIR) data warehouse. These reports will provide legislators, researchers, and the public with a set of user-defined reports and tools to aid in policy and program analysis in areas such as dropout prevention, college readiness, and postsecondary success.

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Public Education Information Management System (PEIMS)

Will school districts need to change the software they use for PEIMS submissions?

Districts will not be required to change their existing software. Adoption of the uniform data standard is required to benefit from the District Connections Database (DCD) and the streamlined, automated extraction tools and process associated with the PEIMS data store. Districts can either map their existing student information system (SIS) to the new data standard or adopt the optional state-sponsored SIS. It is expected that many SIS vendors will adopt the new data standard, which will benefit districts choosing to use their existing systems.

Will districts be required to submit PEIMS data more frequently? Will additional data be required to submit?

No. Districts will continue to certify and validate accountability data for state submission according to the current schedule (four times a year). In the proposed solution, districts can upload data as often as they like, but are not required to do so.

It is not expected that additional data will be required for submission.

Will districts still be able to validate and correct PEIMS submissions? How will the extraction and validation process work?

Yes. The PEIMS submission will be generated by periodic uploads of data “snapshots” from the DCD for specific compliance, funding, and accountability purposes. School districts will validate these snapshots through a workflow and validation process.

The data upload process involves taking the data in the DCD and performing transformations (including the application of business rules, calculations, and aggregations) and loading into the certified PEIMS data store. The rules and processes for these extractions will be published. The resulting data will be in the form of counts, derivations, and aggregations of data based on the DCD data, including identified and de-identified data, as appropriate. The DCD snapshots and certified PEIMS data store reconciliation reports will be made available to the districts to compare the snapshots of their DCD data with the resulting derived certified PEIMS data store contents.

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Voluntary Statewide Student Information System (SIS)

Why is a voluntary statewide SIS needed? What are the benefits to districts and Education Service Centers (ESCs)?

Many small districts are not able to support a robust SIS on their own, so administrators, students, parents, and teachers do not have the benefit of online services or electronic data for analysis. By funding the deployment of a common system statewide, all districts will be able to take advantage of these benefits.

One of the greatest benefits of a state-sponsored SIS will be automating the state reporting process and keeping current with local, state, and federal reporting requirements, which will reduce the time and cost associated with Public Education Information Management System (PEIMS) submissions. Other benefits include lower licensing costs and delivery of a best-of-breed solution because statewide buying power will be leveraged to negotiate the software contract. ESCs can continue to provide support in the areas of application support, help desk, and training services, in addition to offering new services to assist districts adopting the state-sponsored SIS.

How will the statewide SIS be selected? What are the requirements?

Working with district and ESC representatives coupled with a formal Request for Information (RFI), the TEA will use a structured requirements approach to elicit requirements to develop a complete set of SIS baseline and technical requirements specifications. These specifications will inform a process to evaluate market based solutions, rather than one built/developed by the TEA, as to their suitability as a statewide SIS solution.

Will the statewide SIS be mandatory or optional?

Participation in the proposed state-sponsored SIS would be voluntary and without penalty for districts choosing not to participate. Districts with distinct needs will be able to use alternative solutions with no penalties, as long as the solutions meet the data transfer requirements for data collections. Demand for the statewide SIS is expected to be high given the large number of small, resource-constrained districts and the need for a tool to ease the state data collection and submission process.

What are the estimated transition costs, and will there be assistance to defray those costs?

It is expected that there will be one-time costs associated with either transitioning to the optional state system or modifying the existing district system to the new state data standard that districts will largely fund. The state has applied for a federal grant to fund acquisition and implementation of the SIS, which will be announced in May 2010. If the full amount requested is received, there is a provision for a portion of funds to assist districts in defraying transition costs.

Districts should enjoy long-term cost savings in many forms, including an affordable SIS price point through a shared service; reduction of personnel, hardware, and ongoing service costs; streamlined state data submission and reporting; elimination of expensive vendor modifications to meet future state needs; and higher data quality to offset the transition costs and allow more efficient use of resources and tax dollars.

Is the voluntary state-sponsored SIS solution free of charge to districts?

The costs to acquire and implement the optional state-sponsored SIS will be funded by the state. It is anticipated that districts will be responsible for annual subscription and licensing fees. The economies of scale realized through a single statewide solution will drive down the per-student costs and result in more affordable price points for districts.

The District Connections Database (DCD) and the associated dashboards will be available at no cost to the districts.

Does this solution mean that our current SIS or data solution is unnecessary or outdated?

No. The proposed statewide SIS is optional. Because the SIS is voluntary, districts with distinct needs or those that are happy with their current solution will be able to use alternative solutions with no penalties, as long as the solutions meet the data transfer requirements for data collections. The statewide data standard will be published and available to all districts and vendors to support the data transfer process.

When will the voluntary SIS be available for districts?

Depending on the timing and amount of federal grant funding, the SIS will be launched in a phased approach beginning in late 2012.

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District Connections Database (DCD)/Dashboard Tools

Will participation in the DCD be voluntary?

Submitting PEIMS through the DCD will eventually be required. The dashboard tools and the more frequent uploading of data to populate many of the metrics in the dashboard are entirely voluntary.

Will the DCD be Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) compliant?

Yes. The DCD will allow student-level data to be reported in a manner that is consistent with FERPA.

Who will have access to the DCD?

The DCD is a FERPA-compliant solution. Only district educators and administrative staff authorized to support districts (e.g., Education Service Centers [ESCs]) will be allowed to see the data housed in the DCD. The data will not be shared with external stakeholders or the Texas Education Agency (TEA).

A user’s role will limit the extent to which he or she will be granted access to student information. For example, a principal of Bradock High School can drill down into metric information for that school until he or she reaches the most detailed student level; however, he or she cannot drill down to view students comprising the various metrics anywhere else but Bradock High School.

Will districts have to collect and submit more data for the proposed solution?

There is no mandatory, expanded data collection associated with the DCD. Each district can decide how much and how frequently to upload its data based on the needs of its educators.

Will districts be able to use two systems while the TEA transitions to the DCD?

It is anticipated that the transition plan will include a reasonable period for districts to use two systems for PEIMS submissions while the TEA transitions to the DCD.

The dashboards contain more data than are currently collected by the TEA. Where will the additional data come from? Are the data reliable?

Each district will decide whether to upload additional data into the DCD based on the needs and demands of the district’s educators. Data in the dashboards are uploaded from local district systems and are pulled together to display actionable reports. The primary sources of the data are the district student information system (SIS), state assessment provider, other test providers (benchmark tests, College Board), and data submitted for other state and federal reporting purposes. The data displayed in the DCD will be uncertified data that come straight from the district’s local data sources.

Are the system and its usage free of charge to districts?

The DCD and dashboard tools are available to authorized educators in districts that wish to use them. The use is voluntary and offered at no cost to Texas school districts and charters.

Will the public have access to the data in the dashboards?

Only authorized district educators and administrative staff will be allowed to see the data in the dashboards. The data will not be shared with external stakeholders or the TEA.

When will the DCD be available?

The prototype for the DCD is currently under development in connection with a grant from the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation. Upon completion of the prototype, a limited set of districts will begin piloting the DCD in late 2011, followed by a formal launch in mid-to-late 2013.

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General

Who is sponsoring this project?

The Texas Student Data System (TSDS) solution is overseen by the Texas Education Agency (TEA) with significant input from education stakeholder groups, including TEA staff, Education Service Centers (ESCs), district educators, legislators, education research groups, educational organizations, and foundations. Funding for the District Connections Database (DCD) prototype and the TSDS Web site is being provided by the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation with project support provided by Double Line Partners, LLC.

How can I provide feedback to the TSDS team on features and functions that would be helpful?

There is a section on the TSDS Web site to provide feedback. In addition, you may contact the project team directly at tsds_feedback@tea.state.tx.us.

Where can I find more information about what’s coming next with TSDS?

Please check the website for future updates.

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