The Agency of Education told a joint House and Senate education committee on Jan. 10 that it has reissued a validated state education profile and will publish source data and methodology guidance to help lawmakers, district leaders and the public reproduce and analyze charts and conclusions.

"When we re released the state profile report... it's been thoroughly vetted, with the field," Jill Briggs Campbell, deputy secretary for the Agency of Education, told the committee. The agency said it has implemented new validation processes and training so districts code data more consistently.

The agency described several technical improvements:
- Re-release of the state education profile after regional planning sessions validated calculations and expanded analysis.
- Publication of source data files alongside reports so external analysts can recreate tables and charts.
- “Recipe cards” that will explain the calculations and data sources used to produce graphs and analyses.
- Efforts to accelerate the timing of state assessment reporting so results are available earlier in the school year.

Why it matters: Committee members and local school boards said they need reliable, timely and transparent data to make budgeting and policy decisions. The agency said inconsistent coding across districts and the limitations of the uniform chart of accounts have made some cost questions difficult to answer.

Data obstacles and next steps
Agency staff said some topics require new data collection. The deputy secretary said the agency explored proxies for mental-health costs but found the current coding structure insufficient. "We're not going to be able to walk into this room and say to you all, ah, we've quantified the cost of mental health in our school system," Briggs Campbell said. She added that the agency plans a targeted ‘‘class 5’’ data collection to gather information that is not currently collected.

The agency also reported it maintains roughly 300 distinct annual data collections and is mapping datasets that previously were not combined. Agency officials said the combination of improved source data and documentation will be released alongside topical reports to support legislative review and local planning.

Quote
- “When we give you a chart or graph, you're going to understand what... went into the recipe that produced that,” Zoe Saunders, secretary of education, said, describing the agency’s plan to publish methods alongside data.

Context
The agency framed data improvements as necessary groundwork for the policy modeling and budget proposals it plans to make to the governor and the legislature later in the session.