Panel backs bill to give early-childhood programs unique IDs so outcomes can be tracked
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Summary
HB 992 would assign identification numbers to children in publicly funded early-childhood programs to allow long-term evaluation; the Department of Education described privacy-preserving matching, and business and early-childhood advocates urged passage.
Rep. Fryberg told the committee HB 992 would assign identification numbers to children in publicly funded early-childhood programs so the state can measure program effectiveness and demonstrate return on investment.
"This bill allows the state to look at our investments and our programs to ensure what we're inputting into our system is the right choice," said Madeline Batson of the Louisiana Policy Institute for Children.
Department of Education official Thomas Linder explained the proposal includes privacy protections: the department would assign an early-childhood identifier and later link it via an algorithm to local student IDs for research without exposing personally identifiable information. He said existing district matching systems will perform the bulk of the work and any manual review would be limited to a small number of near matches.
Business and policy groups testified in support, saying data are needed to justify sustained or new funding and to track outcomes from preschool through K–12 and into the workforce. Marybeth Derickson of the state's chamber and Barry Irwin of Leaders for a Better Louisiana urged the committee to move the bill forward.
Committee members asked about administrative burden and privacy safeguards. Linder said school systems already perform similar matching tasks and the department’s design minimizes additional workload. The committee adopted amendments to tighten language and reported HB 992 as amended to the floor.
