Significance of Education Data

Bad data = bad decisions. The decision of the U.S. Department of Education to cancel #IPEDS trainings isn't just a budget cut—it’s a #data #quality #crisis in the making. I’ve spent the past decade as an IPEDS Educator with National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and Association for Institutional Research (AIR)—leading workshops, creating tutorials, and supporting literally thousands of new and veteran institutional researchers. My goal has always been to help ensure accurate reporting and meaningful use of higher education data. That mission is now at serious risk. The Department has chosen not to renew AIR’s contract to provide free, expanded training on IPEDS. You may think, why should we care? Here’s why this matters: 💡 IPEDS isn’t just another bureaucratic form—it underpins nearly every dataset about enrollment, financial aid, completion, and student outcomes. 💡 Over 6,000 institutions rely on it to make decisions that support student success. 💡 Funding for institutions is based in large part on it. 💡 Search engines for students to help them find the college that best fits their needs is based on it. 💡 Higher education policy is based on it. 💡 Accreditors make determinations based on it. Institutional Research isn’t a field people typically enter on purpose. There’s no straight path. Most IR professionals are promoted from within, trained on the job, and handed massive reporting responsibilities with little preparation. That’s why these workshops matter. That’s why they’ve existed. IPEDS training has been the foundation for quality, consistency, and confidence in data collection and use. When training disappears, data quality drops. Episodes of inconsistency, misreporting, and misinterpretation aren’t theoretical—they’re inevitable, affecting policy decisions, public trust, and student impact. Let’s start asking tough questions: ❓ Who will train the next generation of data professionals? ❓ If we lose these supports now, we won’t just miss a workshop—we’ll miss an entire culture of data accountability? ❓ Who is going to ensure consistency and accuracy across institutions? ❓ Who is going to build a common language around enrollment, outcomes, and equity? ❓ Who is going to help data professionals turn compliance into insight? Now, with the Department of Education discontinuing this support, we’re risking a decline in data quality, a growing burden on institutions, and the erosion of one of the most important public datasets in higher education. The loss won’t just affect campuses. It affects policymakers. Researchers. Journalists. And ultimately, students. Because when we get education data wrong, we get education policy wrong. https://lnkd.in/eriVUF6R

"𝐼𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑐𝑎𝑛'𝑡 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑤 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑆𝑢𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑚𝑒 𝐶𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑡 𝑠𝑎𝑦𝑠 𝑦𝑜𝑢'𝑟𝑒 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑣𝑖𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐹𝐴𝑃𝐸. 𝑌𝑜𝑢 𝑐𝑎𝑛𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑤 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑢𝑛𝑙𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑦𝑜𝑢 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎." — Dr. Mitchell Yell 𝗟𝗲𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝗶𝗻. In the world of special education, 𝐝̲𝐚̲𝐭̲𝐚̲ ̲𝐢̲𝐬̲𝐧̲’̲𝐭̲ ̲𝐨̲𝐩̲𝐭̲𝐢̲𝐨̲𝐧̲𝐚̲𝐥̲—̲𝐢̲𝐭̲’̲𝐬̲ ̲𝐞̲𝐬̲𝐬̲𝐞̲𝐧̲𝐭̲𝐢̲𝐚̲𝐥̲.̲ As educators, specialists, and advocates, we can’t rely on assumptions, feelings, or anecdotes. We must ground our decisions in measurable growth and clear documentation. That’s not just best practice—it’s legal precedent. 🎯 Data tells the story of a student's journey. 📈 Data shows what’s working—and what’s not. 🧩 Data ensures accountability, clarity, and direction for IEP teams. ⚖️ And most importantly, data is how we protect a child’s right to a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE). If we truly want to honor our students and meet their needs, we must make data collection and progress monitoring a non-negotiable part of the process. Let’s commit to keeping the promise of FAPE—with evidence to back it up.

Data-Driven Decisions: The Key to Higher Education’s Future Higher education is at a crossroads. With enrollment declines and increasing budget pressures, institutions can no longer afford to rely on intuition and tradition alone. The future belongs to colleges and universities that embrace data-driven decision-making to optimize resources, improve student outcomes, and ensure long-term sustainability. ✅ Strategic Enrollment Management Declining enrollment isn't just a challenge—it’s an opportunity to rethink recruitment and retention. Institutions leveraging predictive analytics can identify at-risk students earlier, personalize outreach, and improve yield rates. ✅ Financial Sustainability Data can help institutions allocate resources efficiently, from optimizing class sizes to managing faculty workload. By analyzing tuition pricing models and financial aid distribution, schools can strike the right balance between accessibility and financial health. ✅ Student Success & Retention The key to retention isn’t just getting students in the door—it’s ensuring they thrive. Data on course performance, engagement, and mental health trends allow institutions to intervene before students drop out, increasing graduation rates and overall institutional success. Colleges and universities that resist this shift risk falling behind. Those who embrace it will build resilient, student-focused institutions that can weather economic uncertainty. How is your institution using data to navigate these challenges? Let’s collaborate together👇 #HigherEd #EducationLeadership #UniversityAdmin #EdTech #AcademicLeadership #DataDriven #HigherEdAnalytics #EducationData #AIinEducation #StudentSuccess #EnrollmentTrends #HigherEdFinance #CollegeEnrollment #FutureOfEducation #HigherEdTrends #InstitutionalEffectiveness

When you turn off the lights, you can’t see what’s broken. When education data disappears, so does accountability — and two powerhouse organizations are fighting back to restore the infrastructure we need to improve. Without data, we lose sight of what needs to be built better. Without education research, we lose the rocket fuel that powers economic mobility and opportunity. In a historic move, the National Academy of Education (NAEd) and the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) — represented by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund — are suing the U.S. Department of Education to save the future of education R&D. Why? They argue that dismantling critical education data systems violates federal law, undermines educational innovation, and puts decades of progress at risk. Without reliable data, poor practices fester, gaps widen, and communities lose the ability to drive real change. This isn’t just about spreadsheets — it’s about economic mobility, opportunity, and freedom through knowledge. If we want kids from every zip code to have a fair shot at the American Dream, we must protect education R&D and the data it depends on. 📚 This lawsuit is a line in the sand — for transparency, for innovation, and prosperity from the ground up. We can't build better schools, stronger communities, or a thriving economy without the truth that education data reveals. #SaveEducationData #DataMatters #CivilRights #Accountability #DataIsDemocracy #ResearchMatters #OpportunityForAll #InnovationInEducation #EconomicMobility #DataTransparency

As I have previously posted, NCES has been devastated by contract cancellations and massive workforce reductions. It is deeply ironic that the government is abandoning this longtime responsibility in the name of "returning control to the states" when the historical record clearly shows states themselves demanded this federal data collection in the first place. The government has collected education data for over 160 years. After the civil war, states demanded federal centralization of education data. Several state legislatures directed their senators with resolutions like this one from Kansas in 1867: "Be it resolved by the senate (the house of representatives concurring), That our senators in Congress be instructed, and our representative requested, to favor and urge the establishment of a National Bureau of Education, with headquarters at Washington, with a view to the collection of statistics and other information on general education, and a dissemination of the same." States wanted greater uniformity and accuracy to enable meaningful comparisons across states. In a communication to the House and the Senate in 1866, the National Association of State and City School Superintendents said federal data collection would make data "more widely available and reliable as educational tests and measures." Further, the superintendents noted that "few persons who have not been intrusted (sic) with the management of school systems can fully realize how wide-spread and urgent is the demand for such assistance." This state-requested system evolved into today's NCES, which provides invaluable data used by educators, researchers, and policymakers across the political spectrum. From tracking graduation rates and achievement gaps to monitoring educational access and teacher workforce trends, NCES data informs evidence-based decisions at all levels of government—federal, state, and local. Some argue that federal data collection represents overreach into state educational sovereignty, but history shows the states themselves recognized that standardized, comparable data creates efficiencies, prevents wasteful duplication of efforts, and provides benchmarks that help all states improve their educational systems. The need for education data is even greater today than in the founding days of what became NCES. There is no sense in which abandoning federal collection of education data improves education or assists states. If there are good reasons for losing this valuable data, they have not been articulated nor has a plan to maintain them without NCES been articulated. Let's reverse course now. Contact your representatives (https://lnkd.in/eMQEBUUa) to express concern about NCES funding and staffing cuts and demand transparency about how critical education data will be maintained if NCES functions are eliminated. Our nation's educational future depends on reliable, consistent data—just as state leaders recognized more than 160 years ago.