The following profile is a representation of the Vermont public education state longitudinal data system (SLDS) as presented through publicly available resources of public primary, secondary and higher education, information made available to the public through the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the Data Quality Campaign, published research articles, other third party internet resources (as noted), and direct contact with state and federal public education officials. It is not a formal program evaluation.
The Vermont Automated Data Reporting system (VADR) is Vermont's public education state longitudinal data system (SLDS) managed by the Vermont Agency of Education (VAOE). The VADR, created for the purpose of analyzing Vermont's public education data at the individual, course, institution, and system levels, links data records from the breadth of the Vermont public education systems. The centralized data collection system is part of a nation-wide effort to record granular public education detail over time in order to document the entirety of the students' education experience. This information is intended to be available for analysis and public policy consideration for the purpose of producing improvements in student learning at elementary, secondary, post-secondary, and higher education levels, and to optimize labor market outcomes, individually and generally.
Vermont is one of the 47 states having received public funding to create a state longitudinal data system (SLDS). Despite state-to-state differences, each SLDS shares a common purpose of supporting research and analysis with the intent of informing individual, household, and public policy decisions based on standardized criteria.
This review assesses the overall quality of the VADR as an SLDS by considering the nature of the organization maintaining the data system, those agencies and institutions providing inputs to the data system, and to which agencies and institutions the data systems' outputs are available. The assessment also considers the data system's funding mechanisms, internal and external researcher data accessibility, the quality of the data system's public user interface (dashboard), and the data system's current Data Quality Campaign (DQC) ranking. This report considers each of these criteria pertaining to VADR and provides contact information to the departments and individuals who maintain and manage the SLDS.
The committee is authorized to form and disband sub-committees that address needs and issues regarding the VADR. It has formed the System Governance Sub-committee to address topics that have a direct impact on the process and structure of the VADR. The System Governance Sub-committee ensures the decision making processes and technology related work of the VADR are properly controlled. All decisions made by the System Governance Sub-committee must be reviewed and approved by the committee before becoming official.
Data records are merged through a complex double-deidentifying hashing process that leaves private data behind the firewalls of the participating agencies. This process prevents the release of personally identifiable information such as student names, birth dates or state-testing identifiers. Identifiable data are replaced by randomly generated identifiers by each agency prior to being merged and matched by the VADR. During this merging, the agency-assigned identifiers are replaced by new VADR-generated random identifiers. The algorithms used to produce the VADR identifiers expire and are automatically destroyed after each inquiry, providing unique encryption for every VADR data merge.
Outside researchers interested in analyzing data contained in the VADR must work with a sponsoring agency to develop and refine research questions consistent with the respective agency's research agenda. Once an outside researcher has gained preliminary approval for their project, they must submit a formal research request to the sponsoring agency. This request must provide a description of the project, identification and contact information of each researcher associated with the project, a non-disclosure agreement signed by each of these researchers, and the select data fields needed for the research. If data are requested from multiple agencies, each agency must approve and sign the data agreement. Once this approval process is complete, the researcher will be provided access to develop and execute their research query. After the research is conducted, the researcher must submit their findings to the sponsoring agency for review.
The VADR public user portal is maintained by the participating agencies that provide data records to the data system. The portal puts data about Vermont's schools and labor force in a centralized location which is easy to access and use. It provides reports that have been created through use of the VADR.
The quality of this portal will be evaluated using several different criteria which include: the user-friendliness of the portal, the extent of data offered by the portal, whether the portal is self-sufficient or relies upon other webpages to provide information, and the extent of customizable reports that can be made using the portal.
The portal is easily-accessible through the VAOE online site. The VADR home page provides a comprehensive overview about the data system and the partnerships between participating agencies. The portal is intuitive to use and easy to navigate. Users are provided a clear overview of the sections contained in the portal and are provided step by step instructions on how to use the tools in these sections.
The portal provides reports about K-12, higher education and workforce outcomes for on each school district and county in the state of Vermont. However, aggregate level reports that can be customized by a user's preference are not located in the portal. These customizable reports are listed in each of the participating agencies' online sites. Publish research created through use of the VADR and its partners are listed on the portal as well.
The portal does not allow users to generate customizable reports about specific groups of interest. Instead, users must navigate to the participating agency's online site to access customizable reports.