Exploratory Behavior Scale (EBS)
Category: Student Learning
The Institute of Educational Sciences invested substantial resources into the Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems grant program. These grants helped states convert their educational records to longitudinal datasets for research and evaluation. However, external researchers still have unreliable access to these datasets. In this commentary, we argue that the U.S. federal government should use grants to incentivize states to make educational administrative data open to researchers. The current system requires researchers to cultivate complex relationships with state and district officials, creating potential conflicts of interest that undermine the credibility of educational research. We explain how the federal government could provide a gatekeeping service that would give researchers access to statewide data systems while safeguarding student privacy. Increasing access to educational administrative data would bring transformative benefits to the field, strengthening the evidence base and helping it answer questions key to improving schools and student outcomes.
Keywords
open data; replication; reproducibility; administrative data
Education level
Topics
Document Object Identifier (DOI)
10.26300/tcr7-hy30
