Project Unicorn's third annual State of the Sector Report, released today, provides an in-depth analysis of K-12 school system data use.
BROOKLYN, N.Y., Oct. 18, 2023 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Project Unicorn today released its 2023 State of the Sector report. The annual report provides an analysis of the current state of interoperability and privacy best practice implementation in the K-12 education sector. This report is the most comprehensive set of insights garnered from a national sample of school districts across the country on the state of data interoperability and privacy in the K-12 education space.
This report, utilizing the results of the School System Data Survey (SSDS), is designed to help the K-12 education community better understand current school system capabilities and infrastructure for leveraging education data. The SSDS is administered annually by Project Unicorn to track data interoperability and privacy trends across the field with the findings to be reported in the State of the Sector report.
Key findings from the report include:
- Consistent with all three years, governance was identified as the most significant challenge for school systems among the six survey domains.
- Consistent with findings from last year, school systems that reported having data teams scored significantly higher across all domains, and the size of a district's IT team did not have a significant relationship with the size of a district's data team.
- Many school system leaders are still unfamiliar with education data standards and/or how they might be used to benefit students. Although knowledge in this area is slowly increasing year after year, the buy-in for interoperability is high.
- School systems continue to indicate prioritization of data-driven decision-making but lack the capacity for robust implementation and face obstacles to implementation.
- Funding continues to be a challenge for implementing data system modernization, including interoperability and privacy, even with increased federal dollars.
Like previous State of The Sector Reports released in 2021 and 2022 by Project Unicorn, this report is a resource for educators, stakeholders and policymakers in their efforts to further interoperability and the safe and secure utilization and storage of student data.
"The power to drive policy rests in the hands of changemakers who are willing to allow data to influence their decisions. It's the hope of Project Unicorn that the insights contained within the 2023 State of The Sector Report will contribute to the growing emphasis on data transparency, interoperability and cybersafety in the education sector as well as create forward momentum towards true equity in the classroom as a means of closing the opportunity gap," noted Chloe Sanducci, Project Director of Project Unicorn.
The report features data from over 208 Local Education Agencies and regional Education Service Agencies. The report represents an unprecedented collaboration with a coalition of 17 education organizations working to address the challenge of data interoperability in K12 education. This collaboration has yielded significant growth in interoperability adoption and inclusion of interoperability in procurement requirements for education technology with a 1650% growth in their inclusion since the project's start.
"The work toward interoperable, secure, and readily available data to make informed decisions in K-12 education is neither quick or easy. It requires clear and intentional effort across departments at the local level, but it also requires K-12 schools to work with their vendor partners toward that reality. Even though my district has been focused on this work for the past eight years, we still have goals for improvement, and the work continues," states Chantell Manahan, The Director of Technology at MSD of Steuben County. "Through our partnership with Project Unicorn and the insights of our peers in the State of the Sector report, that work is just a bit easier. The report gives us a clear picture of the interoperability landscape and our place in it, and it also provides a framework for planning future efforts. With all parties working together, we can truly strive for positive change to impact the success of our students."
To read the 2023 State of The Sector Report, and State of The Sector Reports from years past, visit ProjectUnicorn.org.
Media Contact
Thomas Rodgers, Whiteboard Advisors, 1 601-334-6655, [email protected], https://www.innovateedunyc.org/
SOURCE Project Unicorn
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