Project Supporting Education Decision Making Oregon Department of Education April 2001
Table of Contents OREGON S COMMITMENT TO EDUCATION BETTER DECISIONS THROUGH INFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGY The Challenge Pilot Phase Phase 2 Statewide Implementation Our Approach DATABASE INITIATIVE THE FUTURE IS NOW Ongoing Operations DBI Improvements Taking Action 1
OREGON S COMMITMENT TO EDUCATION Oregon s workforce will be the best educated and trained in America by the year 2000, and equal to any in the world by 2010. Oregon Shines II The citizens of Oregon have long held lofty goals for the highest quality education for all Oregonians. And Oregon has also demonstrated a willingness to match ambitious goals with bold actions to achieve its goals. In the 1990 s, two critical events have given state policy makers a key role in educational decision making. In 1990 Oregon voters passed Ballot Measure 5, a citizens initiative limiting property taxes and requiring the state to take responsibility for K-12 funding. Prior to Measure 5, Oregon relied heavily on local property taxes to fund schools 70% of general operating funds came from the property tax. Now about 70% of school funding comes from the state, and the Legislature is primarily responsible for school funding decisions. In 1991 Oregon set new high standards for improved student performance when the legislature passed the Oregon Education Act for the 21 st Century. The Act calls for dramatically raising student achievement by raising expectations for students and focusing curriculum and instruction on higher standards. With state policy makers increasingly responsible for educational decision-making and with the public call for accountability in school spending, the legislature passed HB 3636 during the 1997 Legislative Session. The bill directed the Department of Education to update the K-12 school budget and accounting system to produce comparable spending information for schools and districts. Data gathered from the system was to be placed in a database that is accessible to the public. With this information, policy-makers can begin to make school funding decisions based on comparable data on spending, resource allocation, and student performance. Legislators need to know where state education money goes; how it is spent; and what the results are. Local school boards need data to make budget and spending decisions. To this end, the Department of Education articulated the following eight objectives for the Database Initiative Project: Review, modify, update, improve existing chart of accounts Relate expenditures to academic content standards Standardize and prescribe common definitions for expenditures Collect data at district and school level Provide for electronic data transmission and reporting Use data already reported to the Department Create a set of standard reports or views Identify chief factors influencing student performance The Department initiated a pilot project with sixteen districts in September 1997 to develop the database system. Two years later, upon the successful completion of the Pilot project, the Department began the statewide implementation. The report presents the 2
results of Phase 2 of the project, the extension of the Database Initiative to all of Oregon s school districts and education service districts. What does it mean for Oregonians? Better educational funding decisions to support continuous school improvement and student success, greater public access to educationrelated data, and a model that other government organizations can follow. 3
BETTER DECISIONS THROUGH INFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGY Traditionally, managing and collecting comparable education data in Oregon, like most states, has been hindered by two factors. First, inconsistent financial reports. School districts throughout the state have not always used the same account codes for budgeting and accounting. The result: apples and oranges. The costs of teacher training or classroom computers, for example, may be reported differently in Portland School District than in Bend than in LaGrande. Second, lack of automation. Each of the 198 districts throughout the state have reported a variety of data on more than one hundred paper forms, requiring a huge manual processing effort. In addition to the effort required to wade through volumes of paper, much of the data collected was inaccurate, redundant, and out-dated. So it became clear that to provide comparable education data to the legislature to support policy making, the state needed to update the state accounting codes and use new technology to collect and report data. Currently, Oregon is one of only a handful of states that has taken the initiative to use the Internet to both collect and report comparable education data, and our progress has drawn the attention of others who have yet to take the plunge. The Challenge Seventy percent of the money for schools comes from the state. As a legislator, I need to be able to justify to the people of Oregon the money we are spending on education. House Speaker Mark Simmons, R-Elgin In the past, legislators have not had the information they need to see how schools are spending state money $4.8 billion in the current biennium--and the results. Similarly, educators across the state also need better information to allocate resources within their district to support school improvement and student success. The growing volume of data and need to access the information has had a huge impact on the Department of Education. Current business processes may have been appropriate decades ago, but today, with many times the workload and generations of advances in technology, they had become seriously out of date. Pilot Phase the project is breaking ground in its attempt to connect educational spending and practices to student performance. Mary F. Fulton, Education Commission of the States The Pilot phase of the Database Initiative began in September 1997. This eighteen month long Pilot project--a collaboration of fifteen of the state s 198 school districts and one education service district, the Department of Education, and KPMG Consulting 4
demonstrated that the latest Internet technology can be used successfully to collect and display comparative data to support educational decision-making. The pilot database provided detailed school level data for two years (1997-98 and 1998-99) for the sixteen Oregon districts that participated in the project. It included information on spending, staffing, school processes, student performance and demographics, and school infrastructure. This phase of the project was successfully completed in January 1999 with a variety of reports available on the Internet, including profiles of each pilot district and school and school-by-school comparisons of class sizes, instructional time, and staffing patterns. Financial reports, using revised account codes, provided comparative information on school district budgets, revenue sources, and school level spending. Phase 2 Statewide Implementation The 1999 Legislature supported Phase 2 of the project with a $5.6 million budget to extend the Database Initiative to all of Oregon s school districts and education service districts over a two-year period. This has resulted in a powerful system to support education policy and decision-making and provide the information that educators need to drive school improvement via the following components: The Database The Reporting System Up to date Chart of Accounts Web Data Collection System The Database The Department now has a central relational database containing comparable, schoollevel data for all districts in the state. The Database contains three years of data for the Pilot districts and data for the 1999-2000 school year for all districts. The Database is built on a sound, industry standard, computer infrastructure that can support a wealth of complex data; accommodate large-scale data collections; and provide quick access for a variety of data users. The Reporting System The Database Initiative includes two primary types of reporting and data analysis capabilities: Web Reports The website contains more than 30 standard reports on students, staffing, school processes, spending, revenues, budgets, and school infrastructure. For each report, visitors to the website can use various criteria to select and sort the data to create thousands of different reports. Or if they wish to analyze or reformat the data, they can download it to their own desktop computers. Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) 5
This feature allows direct access to the large data sets for state analysts to perform more detailed and sophisticated analysis. As the Database grows over time, it will provide analysts with the data they need to understand the complex relationships between student achievement and the educational resources. Up-to-Date Chart of Accounts The Department continued to work with school districts, external auditors, and other agencies to improve and refine the detail and consistency of school district financial reporting. The Program Budgeting and Accounting Manual, which underwent a major revision during the Pilot phase, was updated again during Phase 2. The Department set up a committee of district and Department staff to review the manual each biennium to keep up with current practice and new requirements. The State Board of Education recently adopted the 2000 edition of the manual. Web-Based Data Collection System The Database Initiative collects two primary types of data via the Internet: Financial Data The financial data loading system, designed during the Pilot Phase, was upgraded in Phase 2 to support statewide colle ctions. The process is designed so that districts pull data from their own data systems; format it to meet state standards; and send it to the Department over the Internet. This method allows districts to send much more detailed data with relative ease. Web-based data validation saves the districts and the Department time and money over the previous manual processes. Non-Financial Data In Phase 2, the project team developed two methods for collecting non-financial data. Districts that have the capacity can submit non-financial data using the same method as described above for the financial data. Or they may opt to input the data into web surveys developed to facilitate data collection. This option works well for small school districts and for school-level collections where the data is not stored in a computer system at the district level. Other Benefits Federal Reporting The U.S. Department of Education recently piloted the Database Initiative as a model for transmitting data from the states to the federal government in its Integrated Performance Benchmarking system (IPBS) Proof of Concept. The Proof of Concept at the federal level validates the results of Oregon s Database Initiative system, and it will ultimately create efficiencies for Oregon in federal reporting as other states move toward the IPBS. Flexible Technology Tools Many of the web-based tools and processes developed through the Database Initiative Project are now in use for data collection and reporting in other areas within the Department. For example, the Department has built a web-based system to conduct the annual Special Education Child Count required by federal law, using several components 6
of Database Initiative technical solution. The ability to apply these web tools to a variety of Department business problems will pay dividends for many years to come. Report Card Integration The integration of the Report Card data into the Database Initiative is another benefit that the Department has realized in the past year that was not anticipated at the beginning of Phase 2. Combining these databases has created a number of efficiencies in collecting, storing, and displaying the data. Quality Education Model (QEM) The Quality Education Model is a budget tool for state policy makers that estimates the cost of meeting the quality education goals established in state statutes. It is built on assumptions and estimates based on the school-level information in the Database Initiative. Over time, the estimates in the Quality Education Model will improve as the Database becomes richer in depth and breadth. And the QEM will serve to identify additional data needed to answer the questions raised through the use of the model. Our Approach The Department of Education put together a project team in December 1997, including department staff and KPMG Consulting to work with a group of sixteen pilot districts to create a database for education. The team expanded in September 1999 to support the statewide implementation with 13 state staff and additional contracted resources from KPMG Consulting. Inclusive Process The project team developed an inclusive, collaborative process to involve stakeholders throughout the project. The major parts of the project: building the database; collecting data through the Internet; and displaying reports, were developed and demonstrated in eight increments. This approach allowed project participants and stakeholders (staff from school districts, state agencies, the Governor s office, Legislature, and K-12 school organizations) to see and touch the database as it was being developed and to give the team feedback. In turn, the project team made continuous changes and improvements based on input from the stakeholders. Training & Support to Districts The department has used a variety of methods to provide training and support to school districts in making the changes required with the new Database. Staff held workshops around the state to assist school districts with implementing the budgeting and accounting changes and transmitting data over the Internet. The DBI website contains a number of help features to help districts through the transition. The new DBI Help Desk provides telephone and email support to district staff as questions arise. Technical Approach The Project relied heavily on the use of web technology and off-the-shelf software products. This approach resulted in less customized software, shorter development times, ease of maintenance, and reduced project risk. 7
DATABASE INITIATIVE THE FUTURE IS NOW The database will help all policy makers, managers and education stakeholders make wise decisions about education strategies. Governor s Budget in Brief 1999, Key Strategies for Educating Our Children for the 21 st Century Phase 3 of the Database Initiative will focus on two major areas: 1) ongoing operation of the Database, and 2) improvements to the DBI system. Both of these objectives will focus on continuing to improve data quality and streamline business processes. Staff have developed a detailed Phase 3 workplan which is available at the Department upon request. Ongoing Operations The staff will operate and maintain the DBI data collection and reporting system created in the first phases of the project and will: Manage, operate, and maintain the DBI relational database, data collection mechanisms, and reporting systems. Design and implement a comprehensive, ongoing training program for school district staff to support accurate, timely data collection. Provide routine support and assistance to schools and districts in data collection, validation, and reporting. Complete integration of School Finance and DBI functions. Coordinate with other offices within the agency on integration of data collection and reporting efforts. Perform research and analysis to support educational decision-making DBI Improvements Goal 1: Enhance the DBI automated data collection and reporting system to support additional data collection, improve reporting, and facilitate system operation and maintenance. Objectives: Collect and model additional data to support the Quality Education Model and school accountability. Enhance Online Analytical Processing and Web reporting. Increase automation of internal data validation and loading. Align Web survey and automated data (SMF) collection methods. Complete integration with School Report Card. Enhance the security system. 8
Goal 2: Design, develop, and implement a relational database to support the distribution of the State School Fund. Objectives: Document the business rules for processing the allocation of the State School Fund. Determine the requirements, design, construct, test, and implement the database. Integrate collection of related DBI data with the State School Fund database. Produce reports for ODE, school districts, and Legislature. Goal 3: Fully integrate the various Department data stores into the Enterprise Database and automate the interface to DBI. Objectives: Improve the data quality of data in the student level databases that feed summarized data to the DBI. Load Historical Assessment Data 97-98-99 Standardize Migrant and OPTE data collections and integrate into the Enterprise Database. Complete data dictionary and documentation of all systems. Automate interface (Loading) of Enterprise database with the DBI. Complete implementation and integration of longitudinal capability for student data. Goal 4: Consolidate data collection and analysis among various offices in the Department. Objectives: Implement a standard method of data collection in the Department to simplify reporting for school districts, eliminate redundancy, and streamline internal processes. Review data requirements and adopt standard technical tools, data formats, and development environments. Coordinate data analysis to align with Department goals and support educational decision-making. Goal 5: Provide Intranet framework to enhance internal communications and support among individual program offices. Objectives: Create communication s infrastructure to support DBI, Data Consolidation, the Enterprise and all program offices. Create and enhance internal support structure including automation of internal forms, internal routing, monitoring, tracking and reporting. Provide support for internal searchable library of ODE policy, rules, procedure, and programs. Goal 6: Design, develop, and implement a relational database to compile evaluation data regarding the outcomes for children who participate in Oregon Head Start Pre- 9
kindergarten. The Legislature has requested information and research in the following areas: The impact of Oregon pre-kindergarten (OPK) on the school readiness of children who participate. The character of Head Start quality statewide The relationship of program quality, child outcomes and school readiness The relationship of program dollars to successful outcomes. Objectives: Develop the Pre-Kindergarten study to fully meet objectives and outcomes. Interface with, and provide data to, the proposed Governor s Early Childhood Family Net system. Integrate Pre-Kindergarten study database with the existing Data Collection Database at the Department. Integrate collection of Pre-Kindergarten study data with the DBI and Enterprise data. Produce reports for ODE, school districts, and Legislature. Taking Action The value of this summary is not what is written in these pages, but what happens as a result. The Database Initiative has become a reality, but our work is not finished. If we are to be successful in providing school districts resources, training, and support to collect data that will drive educational decisions, we will have to take an active and assertive role, promoting five fundamental strategies as we move forward: Assign clear responsibilities for implementing change. Success will depend on support from the top, a sponsor who has the authority to ensure that changes will happen, and clearly defined project management roles. Otherwise, project participants are unlikely to buy into the effort or acknowledge it importance. Assure sufficient resources. One of the challenges facing the Department, districts, and education service districts as we continue on this journey is the scarcity of resources. Further refining and extending the Database Initiative will require the commitment of staff time for participation in implementation teams, as well as other resources for technical and administrative support. This investment will more than pay for itself over the long run. Expect obstacles. We should expect obstacles, in the form of reluctant staff, concerned educators, bureaucratic roadblocks, or scheduling miscalculations. While planning can reduce the obstacles, it cannot eliminate them. Flexibility and planning are therefore critical. Establish task teams. While support from the top is essential, projects cannot succeed without changes agents throughout the organization as well. Teams made up of insiders and outsiders make particularly effective change agents, since they spread the responsibility and allow for greater input in decision-making. 10
Communicate, communicate, communicate. We cannot over-emphasize the need for developing and communicating clear messages about the need for the further integration with the Database Initiative to staff, districts, stakeholders, and the public. The communication plan should involve three phases: making a case for the continued enhancement and integration of the Database Initiative, refining the vision for the future, and celebrating success and communicating results. In each, consistency and candor should be the rule. At the end of the day, what matters is what gets done. The Department of Education and project stakeholders have taken the first critical steps in the pilot and subsequent statewide implementation of the Database Initiative. With adequate planning and support, we will realize the ultimate benefits of the database. 11