PROPOSED MINUTES

PROPOSED MINUTES
P-20 Longitudinal Data System Advisory Council
March 10, 2016, 1:30 – 4:00 p.m.
Michigan Library and Historical Center- Lake Superior Room
Council Members Present:
Don Dailey - Public Schools
Amy Fugate - Community Colleges
Toni Glasscoe - Community Colleges
Jeffery Guilfoyle - General Public
Leena Mangrulkar - Public Schools
Kristina Martin - Public Schools
Kathleen Miller - Public Schools
Laura Schartman - Higher Education
Council Members Absent:
Jan Dodge - Public Schools
Stephanie Murray - Public Schools
Tracy Pattok - Higher Education
Nick Wagner - Higher Education
Ex Officio Members Present:
Susan Broman - MDE Early Childhood
Robbie Jameson - SBO (alternate present)
David Judd - MDE K-12 Assessment & Accountability
Venessa Keesler - MDE K-12 Academic Affairs Laurie
Westfall - DTMB
Anne Wohlfert - Treasury (alternate present)
Ex Officio Members Absent:
Stephanie Beckhorn - BWT
CEPI Representatives:
Trina Anderson
Rod Bernosky
Melissa Bisson
Kim Harter
Tom Howell
Tosha Johnson
Michael McGroarty
I.
Welcome – Tom Howell (Center for Educational Performance and Information (CEPI))
• The meeting was called to order at 1:32 p.m. with a welcome by Tom Howell. Tom thanked
everyone for coming.
II.
Prior Meeting Minutes – Tom Howell
• An overview of the minutes from the prior meeting held on October 1, 2015 was provided.
• A motion to approve the minutes was made by Tom Howell.
• The motion was seconded by Jeffery Guilfoyle.
• The minutes were approved by unanimous consent of the Council.
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III.
Old Business: Postsecondary Graduation/Success Rates Update – Michael McGroarty (CEPI),
Rachel Edmondson (CEPI) and Michael Jarema (CEPI)
• The presenters began with a reminder of the report's purpose, which is to showcase Michigan
public Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) in their efforts to meet the expectations held by
state citizens regarding student success. The report starts with the 2009-10 enrollment class
and calculates success metrics from two through six years for community colleges and four
through eight years for public universities. The report has two rates: a graduation rate and a
success rate. The success rate is more comprehensive than the graduation rate because it
includes successes for community college transfer students, certificates awarded and
bachelor's/associate's degrees not typical for that type of institution (e.g., a university granting
an associate's degree).
• The Council was then shown the state rate results. The graduation rate was, as expected,
lower than the comprehensive rate because the comprehensive rate includes more success
measures. The graduation rate were higher than the usual to-go for IHE graduation rates: the
Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), especially for the community
colleges. This is due to the rigorous methodology used to more accurately capture a cohort
enrollment class and accounts for various success opportunities.
• The report will be reviewed by state officials. Right now CEPI and individuals from the
postsecondary graduation/success rate report workgroup are continuing to test the
methodology and adjust the layout look and feel for the 2015-16 report.
• Some additional challenges with creating a methodology that is more comprehensive than
IPEDS for both community colleges and universities, is that the report uses data collected
through different methods (e.g., the Student Transcript and Academic Record Repository
(STARR), and the National Student Clearinghouse) and some of which was incomplete or
inaccurate when reported to the state (e.g., some cohort enrollment counts were lower than
expected and "degree-seeking" designation was not consistent). This does not pertain to all
IHEs, but some continue to submit incomplete and/or inaccurate data.
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IV.
The Council discussed how CEPI can better message the data quality
communications it sends to those IHEs in order to continue to help improve
the data reported to the state. One suggestion is to let the report speak for
itself--as this report comes out, the IHEs will become more aware of how the
quality of the data that they submit to the state impacts the report. Another
suggestion was to go through the IHE associations to get the messages out.
The associations could help support the sense of urgency and perhaps get the
message into more hands at the IHE. Lastly, the Council brainstormed how
this report could be used in the future-- maturation into an IHE as another K12 accountability measure other than test scores or as a performance metric
for IHEs for budgetary purposes.
Early Childhood: New Reports – Roderick Bernosky (CEPI) and Dana Frederick (CEPI)
• The presenters started by showing the first report--the Early Childhood Count. The report is a
count of children enrolled in early childhood programs. The data are important because they
help us to understand which early childhood programs children have been enrolled in and
how many children have been enrolled in these programs. This can be viewed by program
type from school year 2010-11 to 2013-14. This report will be introduced in the next couple
of weeks.
• The second report shown was the Early Childhood Participation by Kindergarten report. This
report shows the early childhood program participation by kindergarten cohort class. It helps
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us to understand which early childhood programs kindergarteners have been enrolled in and
how many children have been enrolled in these programs prior to entering kindergarten. For
example, the report can show what a kindergartener in the 2014-15 school year participated in
prior to being a kindergartener, anywhere in the state.
The presenters then provided ideas for future reports, such as Third Grade Assessment
Results, Time in Program and Chronic Absenteeism.

V.
The Council enjoyed seeing the early childhood reports. There is a concern
that the number of children who could benefit from these programs are not all
participating. It was discussed if the reports can compare the student program
participation counts against actual eligibility/need in those
geographic areas. Perhaps the reports could also be done by quintiles to show
the depth of poverty. CEPI will investigate. Lastly, a suggestion was made to
do a report showing full and half-day Great Start Readiness Program (GSRP)
participation.
Early Childhood: Future Reports Discussion--Need Engagement from the Field – Michael
McGroarty (CEPI) and Roderick Bernosky (CEPI)
• Michael and Roderick opened a discussion on how CEPI can get more engagement from the
various early childhood programs in our state to yield a larger stakeholder group. To begin,
the presenters mentioned some of the groups that CEPI could use feedback from but struggles
with at the moment. These programs include, but are not limited to, and vary in terms of level
of engagement: Early On, GSRP, Even Start Family Literacy Program, School-based Child
Care, School and Tuition-based Preschool, and Early Childhood Special Education.

The Council suggested that CEPI could also contact HighScope for report
ideas and feedback.
The Council recessed for a 10 minute break.
VI.
K-12: TRIG Integration Project and its P-20 Intersection – Don Dailey (Kalamazoo RESA) and
Tom Howell (CEPI)
• Don and Tom began by mentioning that the Technology Readiness Infrastructure Grant
(TRIG) project has been discussed with the Council in pieces, but this presentation seeks to
talk about the P-20 continuum.
• First, to get collaboration on technology readiness, we need to think about education as an
enterprise, where consortia, higher education, districts, students, parents and others are all
pieces that are part of this conversation. Currently, we are all communicating with each other,
but not as efficiently, timely or purposefully as we could.
• How we got education data out to stakeholders was very different a few years ago. For
example, typically there was 1-2 secure users at a district viewing standalone reports, to now
we are using www.MISchoolData.org for secure and public access providing multiple views,
dashboards, comparison features and a connection of the statewide view to a local context. In
the future, we strive to bring it all together in an organized and efficient manner by
integrating a single site access for state views, regional data sets and district data sets.
• One way to move in this direction was to get a grant to enable a user to log in with a single
sign-in, which would enable this user to get all of the end point data that this person uses in
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their job. It would be a global navigation to all state education applications and would
leverage data hubs and the tunnel for seamless access to information. (e.g., a career and
technical education (CTE) teacher would be able to log into the system, view all data/reports
related to CTE and be able to upload CTE data into the appropriate application.) We did not
get that grant.
The presenters then discussed the data integration activities and why data integration is
important--because the use of information is a major key to improving education. It provides
actionable data, educational efficiencies and cost savings. The data integration activity is
designed to streamline the use of educational information statewide through common data
and common solutions.
Integrating data is not without its challenges: 1) inaccurate and inconsistent data, 2) data
security and privacy, 3) various data formats, 4) timeliness of data, 5) integrations are prone
to breaking, 6) the need for actionable data and 7) cost.
At the district level, the basic integration concept is to take all of the local systems such as the
student information system, special education system, food service system, and transportation
system and connect that with student information in addition to other helpful information
(e.g., the student information system will also now be connected to scheduling information,
attendance, and grades).
o Challenges: 1) redundancy of data entry, 2) inaccuracy of data, 3) few, if any, systems
"talk" to each other and 4) not one place to access all of this data.
o Solution: the TRIG data integration team builds the connectors to connect to the data hub.
Now, each local system is connected directly to the data hub and the hub in turn provides
the single source of actionable data (e.g., reports, dashboards) and eliminates redundant
input regarding data quality because the hub will have the method to validate the accuracy
of the data.
• Advantages: 1) eliminate the need for redundant data entry, 2) validates accuracy of
the data, 3) data can be shared between systems and 4) reporting allows all data to be
viewed in one place.
There are five data hubs: 1) Copper Country, 2) Kent ISD, 3) Kalamazoo RESA, 4) Wexford
Missaukee ISD and 5) Oakland Schools. The hubs work by using a common exchange format
to make the connections.
In regards to data security and privacy:
o Agreements specify what can be done with the data hosted at the hubs
o Data will be encrypted in transit and at rest
o Permission is required to send the data to any other entity
o Required Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) training for those
working with data
o District can turn integrations on/off or request that the data be removed at any time
o Each district's data is in its own physically separated database
o Strong security password requirements
o Only necessary information goes to system vendors based on the integration need
The data connection output would be a dashboard of sorts with high-level views to a drill
down capability to the student level. It could provide dynamic watch lists and an early
warning system.
Timeline:
o November 1, 2015: Data hubs functional for all district configuration
o June 30, 2016: Statewide rollout to 20% of districts with connected student information
system onboard
o September 1, 2016: Pilot readiness of state reporting
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June 30, 2017: All districts onboard. State reporting functional as an option for districts.
This is also the end of funding.
Don finished the presentation mentioning that we need to add postsecondary to the
conversation and there are standards for that.
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VII.
The Council discussed the great work done so far on this complex project.
Postsecondary: Adult Learner Workgroup Updates – Tosha Johnson (CEPI) and Rachel
Edmondson (CEPI)
• Tosha and Rachel began their presentation reminding the Council of the Adult Learner
Workgroup (ALW) purpose and guiding principles:
o Purpose: To make recommendations to help improve the quality, reliability, utility and
efficiency of postsecondary data collections, analyses and dissemination.
o Guiding Principles: 1) the data collected will be high quality and reliable, with standard
definitions, 2) the data collection methods will be efficient, not redundant, and not
burdensome, 3) the data will be delivered in ways that clearly answer questions that are
relevant and important to stakeholders and 4) the data will be used by those who seek to
improve student outcomes.
• Next, the presenters showed the Council who the current members are, the entity and sector
they are from, as well as this person's representation/expertise. As a checkpoint/housekeeping
activity of sorts, questions were asked to learn if the Council felt the workgroup was
comprised of enough members (i.e., breadth), if the members had the range of expertise
needed to fulfill the goals (i.e., depth), if the purpose and guiding principals needed to
change, and if the Council had any new asks for the workgroup.
• The recent accomplishments of the ALW were mentioned:
o Quality – Helping to constantly improve the STARR collection with better data quality
checks both within the application and at the IHE
o Reliability – Student Unique Identification Code (UIC) storage and assignment guidance
o Utility – Helped develop the Student Pathways Report, which is a mechanism for high
schools and colleges to understand how their students perform after moving to the next
institution. Also helped develop reports connecting to workforce data.
o Efficiency – Provided guidance on how to move the STARR collection from Parchment
(CEPI's e-Transcript vendor) into CEPI's existing student data collection application. The
ALW is also helping CEPI streamline outreaches and collaboration among IHEs.
• Finally, the ALW's current activities were presented:
o Created an ALW Charter – Puts into writing the purpose, goals and expectations for the
members
o STARR Collection Changes – Moving from a spring to a fall collection
o Activities Classification Structure (ACS) – That data collection will be moving from the
Workforce Development Agency into CEPI in 2016
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The Council recommended to keep the ALW large in membership with its
current representation and add representatives from the small and nontraditional universities. Also, given that CEPI will be taking on the ACS
collection, the ALW should have at least one member with ACS knowledge.
When a vacancy arises, CEPI should contact the IHE associations first to
acquire a nomination.
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VIII.
Postsecondary: Postsecondary Aggregate Report – Roderick Bernosky (CEPI) and Kelsey
Heckert (CEPI)
• The presenters showed the Student Pathways Aggregate Report for High Schools. The pdf
report is a summary of data, graphs and tables showing enrollment, credit accumulation,
remedial coursework and degree attainment along with select demographic breakdowns for
each high school graduating class. The report is important because it provides a one-stop shop
showing college enrollment and achievement of high school graduates in easy to read graphs
and tables.
• The sample report shown was a statewide student count view. This report showed how soon
after graduating did students from a particular high school enroll in college. It can also show
a local high schools' college remedial coursework enrollment compared with the state
averages.
• Kelsey mentioned that CEPI receives a lot of great feedback on this report whenever it is
demonstrated. A common suggestion is to see if CEPI could streamline the report (e.g., only
show graphs and not the data tables), as there is so much information that it may be a little
overwhelming.
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IX.
The Council was very impressed with this report and suggested that CEPI
gather feedback on how various groups are using the report and how they
could use it so that CEPI can share that information with other schools. The
Council wrapped up the discussion inquiring if this report can be done for
IHEs. CEPI will add this discussion onto the agenda for the next ALW
meeting.
Workforce: White Papers – Recent Employment Trends & Wages – Scott Powell (Bureau of
Labor Market Information and Strategic Initiatives (LMI & SI))
• Scott began his presentation prefacing the goal of the connection between education data and
workforce data: it was to serve as a proof of concept. The connection was based on a select
(non-generalizable) population of students who exited an education program between July 1,
2009 and June 30, 2011 and who were registered as a Michigan Works! customer between
December 10, 1999 and June 30, 2014.
• Five papers demonstrating the results of this data connection were created, each focusing on a
specific research question:
o How do postsecondary degrees and certifications impact employment?
o What are the impacts of receiving a high school diploma as compared to earning a GED
or dropping out?
o What training programs are most successful?
o What degree programs are most successful?
o How does K-12 education affect educational and employment success?
• These reports show what can be done with the data connection when the population expands.
• The Council received copies of the five reports. Scott welcomed any feedback.
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The Council mentioned that although prosperity regions are good to examine,
using county level is better because prosperity regions are so misconfigured.
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X.
Workforce: Workforce Longitudinal Data System Update – Vern Westendorf (Workforce
Development Agency (WDA))
• Vern began his update mentioning that the data sharing agreement has been signed with the
Department of State. Right now the practicing/testing of the data share is being done. The real
matching will be done within a couple of weeks.
• Right now discussions are happening to determine the research outcome needs for the second
grant (Phase 2). The outcome needs are centered on the two postsecondary goals for Phase 2:
o Provide outcome data to the IHEs on their college graduates in terms of
employment and average wage information. The high-level plan is to enable the
IHEs to see if their graduates got a job and their earnings by cohort.
o Provide data for Michigan's Eligibility Training Provider list, allowing receipt of
federal dollars. In anticipation, the old system (called CECR) was brought inhouse and renamed to MiTrainingConnect (MiTC), which went live in January
2016.
• Addressing these two goals will alleviate the need for IHEs to survey their graduates, which
is costly and does not always yield accurate results.
• A focus group has been assembled that will hold its kick-off meeting on April 13, 2016 to
map out the process of how to accomplish both of these goals. The meeting is open to
additional participants. Vern then passed out a flyer that advertised the meeting and showed
who to contact to be included.
XI.
Roundtable
• No time for a roundtable.
• Tom Howell thanked everyone for their contributions.
• The next meeting is scheduled for June 2, 2016.
• 3:59 p.m. meeting adjourn.
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