[House Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
EXPLORING OPPORTUNITIES TO STRENGTHEN
EDUCATION RESEARCH WHILE PROTECTING
STUDENT PRIVACY
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD,
ELEMENTARY, AND SECONDARY EDUCATION
COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
AND THE WORKFORCE
U.S. House of Representatives
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, JUNE 28, 2017
__________
Serial No. 115-21
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and the Workforce
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COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE
VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina, Chairwoman
Joe Wilson, South Carolina Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott,
Duncan Hunter, California Virginia
David P. Roe, Tennessee Ranking Member
Glenn ``GT'' Thompson, Pennsylvania Susan A. Davis, California
Tim Walberg, Michigan Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona
Brett Guthrie, Kentucky Joe Courtney, Connecticut
Todd Rokita, Indiana Marcia L. Fudge, Ohio
Lou Barletta, Pennsylvania Jared Polis, Colorado
Luke Messer, Indiana Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan,
Bradley Byrne, Alabama Northern Mariana Islands
David Brat, Virginia Frederica S. Wilson, Florida
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin Suzanne Bonamici, Oregon
Steve Russell, Oklahoma Mark Takano, California
Elise Stefanik, New York Alma S. Adams, North Carolina
Rick W. Allen, Georgia Mark DeSaulnier, California
Jason Lewis, Minnesota Donald Norcross, New Jersey
Francis Rooney, Florida Lisa Blunt Rochester, Delaware
Paul Mitchell, Michigan Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Tom Garrett, Jr., Virginia Carol Shea-Porter, New Hampshire
Lloyd K. Smucker, Pennsylvania Adriano Espaillat, New York
A. Drew Ferguson, IV, Georgia
Ron Estes, Kansas
Karen Handel, Georgia
Brandon Renz, Staff Director
Denise Forte, Minority Staff Director
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD, ELEMENTARY, AND SECONDARY EDUCATION
TODD ROKITA, Indiana, Chairman
Duncan Hunter, California Jared Polis, Colorado
David P. Roe, Tennessee Ranking Member
Glenn ``GT'' Thompson, Pennsylvania Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona
Luke Messer, Indiana Marcia L. Fudge, Ohio
David Brat, Virginia Suzanne Bonamici, Oregon
Tom Garrett, Jr., Virginia Susan A. Davis, California
Karen Handel, Georgia Frederica S. Wilson, Florida
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on June 28, 2017.................................... 1
Statement of Members:
Polis, Hon. Jared, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Early
Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education............. 4
Prepared statement of.................................... 4
Rokita, Hon. Todd, Chairman, Subcommittee on Early Childhood,
Elementary, and Secondary Education........................ 1
Prepared statement of.................................... 3
Statement of Witnesses:
Schwartz, Dr. Nathaniel, Chief, Research and Strategy
Officer, Tennessee Department of Education................. 14
Prepared statement of.................................... 16
Stickland, Ms. Rachael, Co-Founder and Co-Chair, Parent
Coalition for Student Privacy.............................. 6
Prepared statement of.................................... 9
Whitehurst, Dr. Grover J. ``Russ'', Senior Fellow in Economic
Studies, Center on Children and Families, the Brookings
Institution................................................ 30
Prepared statement of.................................... 32
Whitmore Schanzenbach, Dr. Diane, Director, The Hamilton
Project, The Brookings Institution......................... 22
Prepared statement of.................................... 24
Additional Submissions:
Mr. Polis:
Letter dated May 8, 2014, from the U.S. Department of
Justice................................................ 47
Submission for the record................................ 51
Information on the Rights of All Children to Enroll in
School: Questions and Answers for States, School
Districts and Parents.................................. 53
Chairman Rokita:
Letter dated June 27, 2017, from the Electronic Privacy
Information Center..................................... 60
Ms. Stickland:
Prepared statement of.................................... 64
Questions submitted for the record by:
Roe, Hon. David P., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Tennessee
Responses to questions submitted for the record to:
Dr. Schanzenbach......................................... 73
Dr. Schwartz............................................. 74
Dr. Whitehurst........................................... 81
EXPLORING OPPORTUNITIES TO
STRENGTHEN EDUCATION RESEARCH
WHILE PROTECTING STUDENT PRIVACY
----------
Wednesday, June 28, 2017
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Early Childhood,
Elementary, and Secondary Education,
Committee on Education and the Workforce,
Washington, D.C.
----------
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:04 a.m., in
Room 2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Todd Rokita
[chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Rokita, Thompson, Messer, Polis,
and Bonamici.
Also Present: Representatives Foxx, Handel, and Scott.
Staff Present: Courtney Butcher, Director of Member
Services and Coalitions; Amy Raaf Jones, Director of Education
and Human Resources Policy; Nancy Locke, Chief Clerk; Jake
Middlebrooks, Legislative Assistant; James Mullen, Director of
Information Technology; Krisann Pearce, General Counsel; Lauren
Reddington, Deputy Press Secretary; Mandy Schaumburg, Education
Deputy Director and Senior Counsel; Brad Thomas, Senior
Education Policy Advisor; Michael Woeste, Press Secretary;
Tylease Alli, Minority Clerk/Intern and Fellow Coordinator;
Austin Barbera, Minority Press Assistant; Jacque Chevalier,
Minority Director of Education Policy; Mishawn Freeman,
Minority Staff Assistant; Alexander Payne, Minority Education
Policy Advisor; and Veronique Pluviose, Minority General
Counsel.
Chairman Rokita. Good morning, everyone. I first want to
take a moment to take care of one housekeeping item. Yesterday,
Representative Karen Handel of the Sixth District of Georgia
was appointed to the Committee on Education and Workforce. And
while her subcommittee assignments are not yet final, I do want
to welcome the Congresswoman to the committee.
I've known Karen personally for years because we served as
secretaries of State together. Her masterful leadership
creating commonsense election reforms in Georgia led to models
for the rest of the Nation to follow. She has showed tremendous
leadership for the people of the entire State of Georgia, and I
look forward to seeing that leadership here on the committee.
So, Karen, welcome.
Mrs. Handel. Thank you very much.
Chairman Rokita. There is no denying the fact that we live
in a data-driven society. Information sharing is connecting and
changing almost every industry. And, of course, our education
system is no different.
In 2002, the Education Sciences Reform Act, ESRA, was
enacted to update and improve how we could leverage education
research to better serve our Nation's schools. And while ESRA
was necessary to reform education research to better inform
what is working in schools, the law may not be working as well
as Congress wanted or intended. In fact, a 2013 Government
Accountability Office study found weaknesses in the law,
specifically significant delays in the distribution of research
available to educators.
States and local school districts rely on timely education
research to identify best practices from across the country in
order to build a better learning environment. And we need to
ensure this research is delivering results for our schools in
need. The data collected by schools is essential for
understanding what is working, and it allows for a more open
conversation between schools and parents about strategies that
work for our students.
Now, while technology has allowed information to be at our
fingertips and has made our lives certainly more connected, if
not easier, such a change comes with significant privacy
concerns that we in this committee need to address.
Americans are apprehensive----and with good reason----that
personal information, such as personal finances and medical
records are susceptible to hacking. We hear it in the news
almost on a daily basis. And our students' educational
information covers not only all of those areas, but even more,
and it is vital that we do all that we can to keep this
information safe.
So when we think of educational information, we may only
think of grades, test scores, course lists, but there is so
much more that is associated with a student's personal record.
Individual education records may contain sensitive information,
such as Social Security numbers, physical and mental health
records, family issues, and student loan and other personal
finance data. As a father of two young boys, I understand
firsthand the importance of keeping our children's records safe
and secure.
So when Congress passed the Family Educational Rights and
Privacy Act, FERPA, as we call it, way back in 1974 to protect
student privacy, the internet, of course, didn't even exist. As
we continue to see technology play a key role in how we conduct
educational research, it is time for Congress to have a serious
discussion on whether or not FERPA is keeping all student
information safe, and how we can update it for----and, if so,
how----or, if not, how we can update it for a 21st century
world.
Our hearing today will focus on how we can strike the right
balance between leveraging education research for our students,
while ensuring their information is private and secure. We have
gathered a diverse group of witnesses, some of whom I've met
already, who will give us their own perspectives on the
effectiveness of both the ESRA and FERPA, and we look forward
to hearing their stories.
Education research can be a powerful tool to help our
students, but that information should not come at the cost of a
student's private and personal information. And I think we can
thread that needle here in the 21st century. I look forward to
our discussions of these issues today.
And now I yield to Ranking Member Jared Polis for his
opening statement.
[The statement of Chairman Rokita follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Todd Rokita, Chairman, Subcommittee on Early
Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education
Good morning, and welcome to today's subcommittee hearing. I'd like
to thank our panel of witnesses and my colleagues for joining today's
important discussion on education research and student privacy.
I also want to welcome Congresswoman Karen Handel to the
subcommittee. I've known Karen personally for years because we served
as Secretaries of State together. Her masterful leadership creating
common sense election reforms in Georgia led to models for the rest of
the nation to follow. She showed tremendous leadership for the entire
state of Georgia and I look forward to seeing it here on the committee.
There is no denying the fact we live in a data-driven society.
Information sharing is connecting and changing almost every industry,
and our education system is no exception.
In 2002, the Education Sciences Reform Act (ESRA) was enacted to
update and improve how we could leverage education research to better
serve our nation's schools.
While ESRA was necessary to reform education research to better
inform what is working in schools, the law may not be working as well
as Congress wanted or intended.
In fact, a 2013 Government Accountability Office (GAO) study found
weaknesses in the law, specifically significant delays in the
distribution of research available to educators.
States and local school districts rely on timely education research
to identify best practices from across the country in order to build a
better learning environment, and we need to ensure this research is
delivering the results our schools need.
The data collected by schools is essential for understanding what
is working, and it allows for a more open conversation between schools
and parents about strategies that work for our students.
While technology has allowed information to be at our fingertips,
and has made our lives more connected, such a change comes with
significant privacy concerns.
Americans are apprehensive, with good reason, that personal
information such as personal finances and medical records are
susceptible to hacking. Our students' educational information covers
all of these areas and more, and it is vital that we do all that we can
to keep this information safe.
When we think of educational information, we may only think of
grades, test scores, and course lists, but there is so much more that
is associated with a student's personal record.
Individual education records may contain sensitive information such
as social security numbers, physical and mental health records, family
issues, and student loan and other personal finance information.
As a father of two young boys, I understand first hand the
importance of keeping our children's records safe and secure.
When Congress passed the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act
(FERPA) in 1974 to protect student privacy, the Internet didn't exist.
As we continue to see technology play a key role in how we conduct
educational research, it is time for Congress to have a serious
discussion on whether or not FERPA is keeping all student information
safe.
Our hearing today will focus on how we can strike the right balance
between leveraging education research for our students, while ensuring
their information is private and secure.
We have gathered a diverse group of witnesses who will give us
their own perspectives on the effectiveness of both ESRA and FERPA, and
we look forward to hearing their stories.
Education research can be a powerful tool to help our students, but
that information should not come at the cost of a student's private and
personal information. I look forward to our discussion of these issues
today.
______
Mr. Polis. Thank you, Chairman Rokita, for holding this
hearing on this very important topic this morning. I want to
thank all four of our witnesses for joining us.
Education research and student data privacy are both very
important, both to us as members of this committee as well as
to our constituents. Fortunately, both education research and
data privacy are thoroughly bipartisan issues, and members of
this committee have a history of working together on bipartisan
legislation and oversight to protect privacy and to utilize
data to improve educational opportunities for children across
our country.
For example, the Success in Education Through Research Act
would have updated current education research law. The Student
Privacy Protection Act would have updated current law
addressing educational rights and privacies for the internet
era.
Additionally, I, along with my colleague, Congressman
Messer, introduced the Student Digital Privacy and Parental
Rights Act last Congress, which would create new privacy
protections for students by prohibiting ed-tech vendors from
selling student data or using it for commercial gain. The bill
also helps reinforce a bipartisan belief that ed-tech providers
have a responsibility in guaranteeing that student data is
private and secure and that reasonable precautions are taken,
just as it would be for yours or my credit card or personal
financial information.
It's important to acknowledge the support and the role that
education research plays in helping achieve equity of
opportunity amongst all students, and the promise of continued
progress towards individualized education using educational
technology. The importance of data is even more crucial as
States begin to implement the Every Student Succeeds Act,
passed by this Congress, which ensures that schools and
districts are held accountable for the education they provide
to their students and for all kinds of students, even though
States have broader flexibilities under the law and how they
can meet those requirements.
ESSA contains an important privacy safeguard by requiring
States to set a minimum sample size for reporting disaggregated
group-level data so that individual data cannot be inferred
from the group data, commonly referred to as the n-size. The
statute requires States to ensure the minimum number does not
reveal any personally identifiable information.
One of the challenges I look forward to addressing here in
this hearing is the need to strike a balance between student
data privacy laws with very strong protections, while still
allowing students, teachers, districts, and families to benefit
from research findings, from State data systems, from optimized
and personalized educational technologies, and the promise of
ed-tech innovation.
I want to thank our witnesses for participating in this
hearing. I'm very much looking forward to your testimony.
And I yield back.
[The statement of Mr. Polis follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Jared Polis, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on
Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education
Education research and student data privacy are topics important to
my constituents and me. Both are also bipartisan issues, and members of
this committee have a history of working together to introduce
bipartisan legislation to reauthorize education data and privacy laws.
For example, the Success in Education Through Research Act (SETRA)
would have updated current education research law. And the Student
Privacy Protection Act would have updated current law addressing
educational rights and privacy.
Additionally, I, along with my colleague Congressman Messer,
introduced the Student Digital Privacy and Parental Rights Act last
Congress, which would create new privacy protections for students by
prohibiting ed tech vendors from selling student data or using it for
commercial gain. The bill also helps reinforce a bipartisan belief that
ed tech providers have a responsibility in guaranteeing student data is
private and secure. I look forward to continuing to work with
Congressman Messer on this issue and re-introducing our student data
privacy bill this year.
While education rights and privacy are essential, and we want to
make sure federal law does not hinder any state efforts that attempt to
raise the bar in protecting student privacy, it is also important to
acknowledge and support the role education research plays in helping
achieve equity of opportunity amongst all students.
Reliable de-identified data plays a constructive role in
identifying gaps in public education, and longitudinal data systems
help state and local leaders identify strategies for intervention and
improvement of poorly performing schools.
The importance of data is even more crucial as states begin to
implement the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which still ensures
schools and districts are held accountable for the education they
provide to their students even though states have broader flexibilities
and responsibilities under the law. ESSA also contains an important
privacy safeguard by requiring states to set a minimum sample size for
reporting disaggregated group-level data. Commonly referred to as the
``n-size;'' the statute requires states to ensure that the minimum
number does not reveal any personally identifiable information.
One of the challenges I look forward to addressing in this hearing
is the need to strike a balance between student data privacy laws with
strong protections, while still allowing students, teachers, districts,
and families to benefit from research findings, state data systems, and
the promise of ed tech innovations, like personalized learning
platforms.
Thank you again to the witnesses for participating in this hearing,
and I look forward to your testimony.
______
Chairman Rokita. I thank the gentleman.
Pursuant to committee rule 7(c), all members will be
permitted to submit written statements to be included in the
permanent hearing record. And, without objection, the hearing
record will remain open for 14 days to allow such statements
and other extraneous material referenced during the hearing to
be submitted for the official hearing record.
I'd now like to turn to the introduction of our
distinguished witnesses, and I recognize, again, the ranking
member to introduce the first witness.
Mr. Polis. We have a Coloradan on our panel today. I'm
excited to welcome back Rachael Stickland, who is a parent from
Jefferson County, Colorado, which I represent a part of. She is
the founder of Privacy Matters and the co-chair of the Parent
Coalition for Student Privacy. Along with her coalition co-
founder, they've organized a national coalition of parents and
advocates to support student privacy and advocate for State and
Federal legislation with strong student data privacy
protections. I'm thrilled to welcome Jefferson County resident
Rachael Stickland.
Chairman Rokita. I thank the gentleman. Welcome.
I'll resume with our introductions.
Dr. Nathaniel Schwartz is the chief research and strategy
officer for the Tennessee Department of Education.
Welcome, sir.
Dr. Diane Schanzenbach----
Ms. Schanzenbach. I'm used to it.
Chairman Rokita. I'll look into your digital record,
ma'am----is the director of The Hamilton Project and a senior
fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Dr.----
Ms. Schanzenbach. Schanzenbach.
Chairman Rokita.----Schanzenbach, welcome. Thank you.
Dr. Russ Whitehurst is a senior fellow in the Center on
Children and Families in the Economic Studies program at the
Brookings Institution.
Dr. Whitehurst, welcome as well.
I now ask our witnesses to raise your right hand.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Chairman Rokita. Let the record reflect that all witnesses
answered in the affirmative.
Thank you.
Before I recognize you to provide your testimony, let me
briefly explain our lighting system. And this is a reminder for
us up here as much as it is for you. You'll each have 5 minutes
to present your testimony. And when you begin, the light in
front of you will, of course, be green. With 1 minute left, it
will be yellow. And with a red light, I'll start hitting on the
gavel. So at that point, I'll ask you to wrap up your remarks
as best you're able. And, remember, all this will come into the
record, including any written testimony you've given us. And
then members, under that same lighting system, will each have 5
minutes to ask questions.
So, with that, Ms. Stickland, you're recognized for 5
minutes.
TESTIMONY OF RACHAEL STICKLAND, CO-FOUNDER AND CO-CHAIR, PARENT
COALITION FOR STUDENT PRIVACY
Ms. Stickland. Thank you, Chairman Rokita, Ranking Member
Polis, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, for
inviting me to testify today on behalf of parents concerned
about student privacy. My name is Rachael Stickland. I am a
parent of two public school children in Colorado and a co-
founder and co-chair of the Parent Coalition for Student
Privacy.
Today, I'd like to focus my testimony on the need to
consider the broad implications to privacy when student data
are collected and disclosed for various purposes, including
research.
The first topic I would like to address is data security.
In the last 18 months alone, K through 12 public schools in the
U.S. experienced at least 147 separate cybersecurity-related
incidents, some resulting in identity theft. Last year, 13
percent of all higher education institutions experienced a
ransomware attack. This is the first time that the education
sector outpaced the government, retail, and healthcare
industries in this type of threat.
But these incidences aren't----excuse me----incidents
aren't limited to K-12 schools and colleges. The U.S.
Department of Education has been found to have especially weak
security standards as reported in a 2015 audit by the
Department's Inspector General. According to the audit, staff
in the Inspector's Office hacked into the Department's main IT
system, gained unfettered access to personal data without
anyone noticing.
In May 2016, the government scorecard created to assess how
well Federal agencies were implementing data security measures
awarded the Education Department an overall grade of D.
Earlier this year, the IRS disabled the FAFSA data
retrieval tool on the Education Department's website until
extra security protections could be added. The IRS later
reported that the personal data of as many as 100,000 taxpayers
may have been compromised through this tool. My family, in
fact, fell victim to this attack. In a series of letters sent
by the IRS, we learned someone likely obtained my husband's tax
data through the FAFSA application and then filed a joint
return on our behalf. The IRS has since provided 1 year of
identity theft protection for my husband, but nothing for me or
our children.
So whether at the State, local, or Federal level, student
information is vulnerable to breaches and hacks such as these
in large part because the Federal student privacy law known as
FERPA has no baseline security requirements. Until the law is
updated to address data security in the 21st century, students
will continue to be at risk long into their adulthood.
Another issue we urge you to consider is the use and
disclosure of student data stored in statewide longitudinal
data systems, or SLDSs, or any Federal data repository. While
parents generally support research to drive decision-making in
education, most believe that education should be in the control
of their local community and that a student's data should
remain within the school or district.
When State or Federal agencies gain access to identifiable
student data without parental consent, many parents perceive
this action as government overreach. Other parents are
concerned that data collected on individuals, even when limited
to certain elements and collected for one purpose, could be
expanded in scope and subjected to mission creep. K through 12
student data currently maintained by most States in their SLDS
contain upwards of 700 highly sensitive data elements,
including disciplinary records, disabilities, and immigration
status. The comprehensive nature of these data sets creates
lifelong dossiers on individuals and could quickly become a go-
to repository for other State agencies, institutions, or the
Federal Government.
Frankly, it's not difficult to imagine how this gold mine
of data could be repurposed for political or ideological gain,
which is one reason our coalition supports maintaining the
Higher Education Act's ban on a Federal student unit-record
system.
FERPA became law at a time when students' files were held
in the principal's office, for the most part, never left the
school. Many parents believe this is still the case and are
shocked to learn that troves of electronic student data are
collected by schools and their contractors, stored online, and
digitally disclosed to private companies and to State and
Federal agencies without their consent.
We believe the disconnect stems, in part, from FERPA's lack
of important transparency requirements or fair information
practices. At a minimum, parents should know who has their
students' data----excuse me, their children's data, and for
what purpose, how it is secured, how to access and correct it,
and when it will be destroyed. Optimally, parents should be
notified in advance of any disclosure outside of the school
district and given the opportunity to opt out and delete
information not necessary to the child's transcript.
FERPA is long overdue for an update. It must be modernized
to assure students that their information will be protected
from unauthorized access and misuse. Until then, our coalition
strongly urges policymakers not to enable new or expanded data
collections for research or any other purposes.
Thank you, again, for the opportunity to share our
coalition's concerns with you today and for your consideration
of my testimony.
[The statement of Ms. Stickland follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Rokita. Thank you, Ms. Stickland.
Dr. Schwartz, you're recognized for 5 minutes.
TESTIMONY OF DR. NATHANIEL SCHWARTZ, CHIEF RESEARCH AND
STRATEGY OFFICER, TENNESSEE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Mr. Schwartz. Thank you for the opportunity to be here.
During my 5 years with the Tennessee Department of
Education, our agency has received four grants from the
Institute of Education Sciences, or IES, and we have joined
with Vanderbilt University to create the Tennessee Education
Research Alliance, one of the first research-practice
partnerships aimed directly at State policy in K-12 education.
We're quite proud in Tennessee about the major improvements
we have seen in student achievement recently, with our States'
scores in the National Assessment of Education Progress rising
faster over the last 5 years than any other States. And we
ascribe some of this progress to the ways that we anchor our
work in a system of continuous research and evidence-driven
improvements.
State departments of education like mine need rigorous and
meaningful research in order to function effectively. In
Tennessee, we rely on Federally supported research to determine
our State's greatest needs, to identify and improve levers of
change, and to evaluate program effectiveness.
In my written testimony, I describe the way our State used
an IES continuous improvement grant to develop a model for
coaching teachers that we hope will contribute to rapid reading
gains for our State's neediest students. This kind of
innovation on a highly relevant problem directly aligns with
the aims of our Federally supported research system. But making
this type of research the norm requires several key elements,
not all of which are consistently available.
First and foremost, the work in Tennessee depends on the
presence of a strong internal research team. For nearly every
major research study that our State has conducted, including
multiple gold-standard, randomized trials that are now
influencing national conversations in areas ranging from
preschool to early postsecondary, our in-house researchers
identified the opportunities and facilitated the work. Although
vital, this sort of State research office receives little
direct support or explicit encouragement from the Federal
Government.
Second, our work depends on IES support for long-term
partnerships between our State department and independent
research partners. Just as we need strong internal research
teams, we also need a consistent set of knowledgeable partners
who can provide an independent voice and ties to the larger
research community. Currently, the grants that IES provides
supporting partnerships between researchers and State agencies
make up only about 12 percent of the total IES portfolio.
Lastly, we need secure systems that let us confidently
conduct research while ensuring student privacy. Our
partnership with the Tennessee Education Research Alliance has
created systems to consolidate department data and allow this
data, with student names and IDs removed, to be used within a
secure environment by approved education researchers.
These points lead to several recommendations. First, I ask
that you preserve the Federal role in supporting research. The
quality of our education in our country depends on decisions
made at the State and local level. We need these decisions to
be made with strong evidence and information.
Second, I'd encourage you to provide support for internal
research teams within State departments of education. Strong,
applied research work depends on the presence of local
researchers inside education agencies who have the knowledge
and expertise to conduct analyses, to seed new research, and to
act on research findings. The Federal Government could take
several steps to help build these offices both by offering
direct financial support or by offering IES support for
training programs designed specifically to develop the pool of
researchers with the skills and desire to serve within State
and local agencies.
Third, I'd invite you to build the emphasis within IES on
long-term, rigorous research partnerships that will produce
tangible State and district-level improvements and innovations.
In particular, IES could do more to support long-term
organizations like the Tennessee Education Research Alliance
that build expertise, knowledge, and data security at the local
level.
Fourth, I ask that you explicitly encourage the secure use
of educational data for research purposes and that you clarify
Federal guidance on certain issues. In my written testimony, I
note some specific areas where the Federal Government could
clear up uncertainty about the use of data that crosses
administrative agencies. And here I agree, in many ways, with
my colleague, Ms. Stickland.
The last point here gets a little down in the weeds as I
near the end of my 5 minutes. And so I'd be happy to answer
questions on this topic or refer you to my written testimony.
I thank you, once again, for the opportunity to discuss
these important issues, and I look forward to answering
whatever questions you might have. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Schwartz follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Rokita. Thank you, Doctor.
Dr. Schanzenbach, you're recognized for 5 minutes.
TESTIMONY OF DR. DIANE WHITMORE SCHANZENBACH, DIRECTOR, THE
HAMILTON PROJECT, THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION
Ms. Schanzenbach. Thank you.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to
discuss opportunities to strengthen education research while
also protecting student privacy. I'm Dr. Diane Schanzenbach.
I'm the director of the Hamilton Project and a senior fellow in
Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution. I'm also a
professor of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern
University, where I direct a predoctoral training program
funded by the Federal Institute of Education Sciences.
Our education system must continue to adapt and improve to
ensure that our Nation's citizens are prepared for the jobs of
the future and we make careful and efficient use of public
resources. Rigorous and relevant education research is a
critical component of an education system dedicated to
continuous improvement.
As a researcher who has three children attending public
elementary schools in Illinois, my husband and I both share
concerns about the student privacy and data confidentiality.
Any time a student's data are shared outside of school walls,
for example with researchers such as myself, there are risks
that are important to manage and minimize through appropriate
protocols and procedures. At the same time, there are also
large benefits that can be derived from researchers' access to
data. The key is to ensure that we mitigate any potential risks
without foregoing the desperately needed progress and benefits
that research can have on the education system.
Fortunately, I know firsthand, from my experience as a
researcher and a parent, that individual students' data can be
appropriately safeguarded, while simultaneously being
productively used to assess and improve education. I'm
optimistic that, during today's hearing, we'll be able to
address some of the key misconceptions regarding what data are
made available to researchers and how the data are used. I'm
going to speak briefly to how researchers doing work with
secure student-level data must handle the data by law.
Before access to data is granted, there are detailed
written agreements between the researcher and the district or
State partner. These always include instructions on who may use
the data and how the data may be used. For example, with one
partner, I can only access their dataset on a stand-alone
desktop computer with no access to the internet that I keep in
my office. That computer has to be kept in a locked safe when
it's not in use. Of course, I may only use the data for a
specific approved project, and I no longer have access to the
data once that project is complete.
While these datasets have information about individual
students, the research itself is never about individual
students. While researchers need access to individual-level
data to conduct the analysis, the point is never to hone in on
one individual, but instead to use a large number of
individuals' data to understand broader trends. In fact, I'm
not permitted to publish results that might inadvertently
identify any individual.
In my experience, when data from State or district
longitudinal data systems are shared with external researchers,
they do not contain identifying information such as names or
addresses and oftentimes contain anonymized student numbers.
The emphasis on rigorous and relevant research and an
increasing access to administrative datasets has led to a
dramatic expansion of valuable insights. While there are many,
many success stories, I'll highlight a few recent studies that
have already yielded demonstrable results and significant
impact. Researchers have measured the diversity of impacts of
charter schools on student achievement. It also measured the
spillover benefits of school voucher programs on the children
who stay behind in regular public schools.
One of my favorite examples is from Chicago. Leveraging
longitudinal data, researchers discovered early-warning
indicators that predict high school dropout. Based on this
research, they developed a simple Freshmen On-Track indicator
based on ninth grade credit completion and course failures.
Armed with this new information from research about what to
look for, individual schools now monitor their own students'
progress on this measure and can intervene early to get
specific ninth and tenth graders at high risk of dropping out
back on track to improve their likelihood of graduating from
high school. School districts all across the country have
adopted this approach to improve their graduation rates as
well.
While there are many more success stories, one factor
remains constant: Investments in data systems that support
cutting-edge research, offer an impactful mechanism to improve
our education system and the skills of millions of American
students. We've seen significant improvements in education
policy and practice, spurred by rigorous and relevant research.
To be economically competitive in a rapidly evolving world
market, it is imperative that we continue to improve the U.S.
education system and increase the system's return on
investment. Additional research will be key to driving these
needed improvements. Along with the strong benefits of
research, however, comes the need to protect student privacy
and data confidentiality. Both goals can be achieved by helping
States adopt best practices to protect confidentiality while
still partnering with researchers. Thank you.
[The statement of Ms. Schanzenbach follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Rokita. Thank you, Doctor.
Dr. Whitehurst, you're recognized for 5 minutes.
TESTIMONY OF DR. GROVER J. ``RUSS'' WHITEHURST, SENIOR FELLOW
IN ECONOMIC STUDIES, CENTER ON CHILDREN AND FAMILIES, THE
BROOKINGS INSTITUTION
Mr. Whitehurst. Thank you.
As someone who's been an active researcher and user of
privacy-protected student data, and as someone who's the
founding director of the Institute of Education Sciences, I'm
very appreciative for the opportunity to testify today.
For those of you not familiar with it, the mission of the
Institute of Education Sciences, IES, is to report statistics
on the condition of education in the U.S., to fund research on
educational programs and practices that support student
learning, and to evaluate the effectiveness of Federal and
other education programs.
The Federal Education Research Enterprise was established
by the Cooperative Research Act of 1954. And I believe it was a
failure prior to the establishment of IES in 2002. Books have
been written about this. I will summarize with a quote from the
National Academies of Sciences. They did a report on the
immediate predecessor to IES. That was the Office of Education
Research and Improvement. They cataloged a litany of problems
with that agency and concluded with, quote, ``OERI needs to be
rebuilt.''
Congress did that with the Education Sciences Reform Act of
2002. Here's what the Office of Management and Budget said 7
years later about IES: Quote, ``Since its creation by the
Education Sciences Reform Act, IES has transformed the quality
and rigor of education research within the Department of
Education and increased the demand for scientifically based
evidence of effectiveness in the education field as a whole.''
I would refer to the previous two witnesses as evidence in
point to that.
This leads me to the first of four points and
recommendations.
First, if it isn't broke, don't fix it.
The operational success of IES for the last 15 years has
spent too long serving directors, several leaders delegated the
responsibility of the director, and three different
Presidential administrations. The stability and performance
across variations in leadership is due to the legislation
itself. The legislation includes clear----gives IES a clear and
focused mission, statutory independence from political
interference, highly qualified staff, and strong internal
controls for quality.
So I recommend that as you take up reauthorization of IES,
you retain the core components of the Education Sciences Reform
Act and focus on the ways to add to functions of IES that will
make it more useful.
The second point is follow the money. IES operates with an
annual budget of a little more than $600 million. This is a
small amount in relative terms, only about 1 percent of the
Department's discretionary budget. On the bright side, the IES
budget has risen over the years, and it has not whipsawed.
That's very important.
My immediate concern here today is not so much the line
item program budget, but the budget for salaries and expenses.
That budget is drawn from the Department's omnibus budget for
administration. It's at the discretion of the Secretary. IES
has substantial and absolutely essential independent authority
to carry out its work. But it would be easy for an
administration that is displeased with certain products because
they're off message or simply has other priorities for its
administrative budget, to cripple IES through reductions in
funding for its salaries and expenses. The danger is evident in
the Department's present plans for an across-the-board
reduction in force that may cut IES staff, already small in
number and operating with high efficiency, to the bone.
Thus, I recommend that in reauthorizing IES, this committee
provide for a specific budget for the administration of IES.
Third point is that time is of the essence. The yield in
terms of useable products from individual IES investments
typically takes years to emerge. Research----a research firm
gets a contract. They give you the results 4 years later.
That's important work. There's a natural timeline to it. At the
same time, a lot of education policy occurs in timeframes
measured in months, not in years, and that decision-making
often occurs bereft of any real insights from the research that
already may exist.
Consider, for example, the Trump administration's fiscal
year 2018 budget proposal to cut funding to colleges and
universities for the Federal Work-Study Program. This Congress
will need to consider that proposal. Wouldn't it be nice if IES
were funding a program activity that, in a matter of months,
could generate an objective report on what we know and don't
know about Federal Work Study, how it's performing, who it
serves, and what the consequences would be for changing it?
I recommend, thus, that you authorize a budget for IES to
generate independent, quick turnaround reports on high-impact
policy issues that arise in education policy at the Federal and
State levels.
Finally, point four speaks to the privacy issues we are
talking about today. There's invaluable information to improve
education in large administrative databases of student records.
Mining that data has risks that must be acknowledged and
eliminated. The computational analysis of large administrative
datasets can reveal patterns, trends, and associations that
provide very important insights about how to improve education.
Chairman Rokita. Thank you, Doctor. Thank you, Doctor. The
time's expired. You'll have to take care of it in questioning.
I'm sure you'll get those points in.
Mr. Whitehurst. All right.
[The statement of Mr. Whitehurst follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Rokita. At this time, I'm going to recognize
members for member questioning. And instead of recognizing
myself, I'm going to reserve and instead recognize the chairman
of the full committee, Chairwoman Dr. Foxx. You're recognized
for 5 minutes.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I want to thank our panelists for being here today. We
appreciate your making the time to come.
Ms. Stickland, I'm sorry to hear about what happened to
your family with the DRT. We've had a whole hearing on that
issue, as you may know. But it, unfortunately, highlights
concerns parents have about the collection of valuable
information of students.
When you hear accomplished researchers like Dr. Whitehurst
talk about how they protect the data they get so there's not as
great a risk with sharing that data, does that give you peace
of mind about sharing student data?
Ms. Stickland. Thank you for the question. Parents aren't
opposed to research or evidence used in making decisions for
education. But I think what the FAFSA situation did reveal is
that no data is completely safe. When it's linked to other
agency data, it becomes especially vulnerable, and that linkage
is a disclosure. So while we understand and appreciate that
researchers are very cautious with data and there are measures
to take to try and deidentify data and keep it confidential, it
still poses a very significant risk.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you.
Dr. Schwartz, you've heard what Ms. Stickland has said
about the breaches. What more do you believe your State could
do to limit the data collected in the first place? And of the
data collected, is there more the State could do to limit what
is shared with outside entities without compromising meaningful
feedback on school and program effectiveness?
And I think the example given about helping students
complete school and working within the school is a great
example. But there was no need for that information to be
shared with anybody else for the school to make the----work
with those students, it seems to me. But please----please
respond.
Mr. Schwartz. It is critical----thank you. It is critical
that we protect student privacy while also conducting research.
And I think that we in our State have spent a lot of time
thinking about how we can----how we can have these two things
live together within our States. So we have a number of State
laws on the books that require us to make public and
transparent every data element that gets collected at the State
level and to make public the ways that this data is being used
for research purposes.
So this isn't something being done behind closed doors.
This is something that we want to disclose and make very clear
what we're doing and why we're doing it. Because, as Ms.
Stickland points out, I think there are clear, clear benefits
to doing this right. I would also argue that there are clear
benefits to, at times, linking data across agencies.
So our----our strategic plan in Tennessee asks us to think
about where students go beyond high school. For many years, the
goal of bringing students to----of having students pass through
our K-12 education system was high school graduation. But
that's not enough. And one of the things we've been able to
look at by linking data is to understand, so what happens to
students who leave our high schools with only a high school
degree and enter the workforce in Tennessee? The answer is that
they are annually making a salary of somewhere around $10,000.
We couldn't answer those questions without linking data.
What I think we need are the secure systems for when that data
is linked being absolutely sure that data is completely secure
and ensures student privacy. And I entirely agree with Ms.
Stickland's points about revamping some of our laws to make
sure that is the case.
Ms. Foxx. Dr. Whitehurst, you talk about the need for IES
to support quick turnaround reports on high-impact policy
issues. But is the problem the lack of quick turnaround
capability or is the problem a lack of truly relevant research
within existing research projects? Why would we need a quick
turnaround study on a Federal program that might be impacted by
a budget proposal? Would not that program have been evaluated
already?
Mr. Whitehurst. Well, in some cases, programs have been or
components of programs have been evaluated already. But
nobody's in a position, through Federal funding now, to
synthesize that research, gather it together, and make
reasonable conclusions about what we know going forward. On
Federal Work-Study, for example, there is a body of research on
it. It's spread over a number of years, a number of research
teams, a number of universities. Somebody has to be responsible
for gathering that together, drawing conclusions that are
objective, not pushed by political point of view, and that can
be expected to do that in a trustworthy fashion. I think IES
has a role in doing that. It's not currently fulfilling that
role because there is no budget or particular authority to do
so.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Thompson. [Presiding.] The gentlelady yields back.
I now recognize Mr. Scott from Virginia, the ranking member
of the full Education and Workforce Committee.
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for
convening this hearing.
First, Ms. Schanzenbach, one of the sensitive data points
would be immigration status. It's my understanding that schools
can't even ask about immigration status. So would that not be
missing from the data?
Ms. Schanzenbach. I don't know about that legally. But I
know that, as a researcher, I've never had access to anyone's
legal status.
Mr. Scott. You mentioned studies in Chicago predicting
dropouts. What were the conclusions and how would you target--
--how would they help you target money to maximize cost benefit
of investments?
Ms. Schanzenbach. Sure. So they----the researchers there
looked to see what sort of factors predict high school dropout
rates and what we can figure out, early-on, so we can intervene
with kids, you know, in eighth grade or ninth grade or tenth
grade. And they looked at a whole range of different potential
triggers that then later on predict. So we really needed the
solid research, you know, that they were able to do with that
longitudinal data system.
What they found was ninth grade credit attainment, and some
other factors that were observable in ninth grade, were really
good predictors of later high school graduation. So then they
told that to schools. The schools were able to target kids who
were sort of dropping off pace that way, get them sort of
course-corrected back in ninth grade, maybe tenth grade. And so
then they've seen their high school graduation rates increase.
And lots of other cities have adopted the same program. I think
it's a real success of research.
Mr. Scott. Thank you.
Mr. Schwartz, you indicated research on what happened to
people after high school. I assume that one of the factors you
looked into is what predictors there would be. How did you use
that research to help students finish high school and get on
the way to additional education?
Mr. Schwartz. Sure. Many of the things we've looked at in
Tennessee, actually, mirror the work from Chicago that Dr.
Schanzenbach is referring to. And the new ESSA law has actually
allowed us to think about how we integrate that into the day-
to-day work of our schools.
So one of the things that ESSA asks States to do as they
set up their State-level accountability systems is to think
about----think about indicators other than test scores that
could be used to hold schools accountable for the progress that
students are making along the way.
One of the things the Chicago work has found, and that
we've also found looking at data in Tennessee, is that chronic
absenteeism in those early years matters a lot toward how
students succeed both across the course of high school, but
then also what they do following high school. And so we have
added to our accountability policies an indicator on chronic
absenteeism that we will use to monitor school progress over
the years.
Mr. Scott. And has that action produced results?
Mr. Schwartz. We are in year one.
Mr. Scott. Okay. And, Dr. Whitehurst, you had an
interesting idea that we ought to make our decisions based on
research. That's a fairly unknown concept around here, so I
appreciate it.
But how are research projects now identified and how are
the researchers selected?
Mr. Whitehurst. The researchers are selected through a
competitive process much like that that would occur at the
National Institutes of Health as people are seeking grants to
do health research.
The topics themselves are broad topics, like a focus on
teacher quality or dropout prevention, are really the
responsibility of the director of IES to propose. It goes
through the Board of Education Sciences. There's an annual
report. There's input from a variety of people. And that's a
process that needs to be quite sensitive to changing----
changing priorities, education policies, and political policy.
Things happen. You need to do research on those things, and
it's the responsibility of the agency to be responsive to those
needs.
Mr. Scott. And after you've done the research, how does the
public benefit from the results?
Mr. Whitehurst. Well, it can benefit from----in a number of
ways. We've heard, for example, through the testimony of Dr.
Schwartz, how citizens of Tennessee have benefited from
research done there, or in the case of Dr. Schanzenbach, how
students in Chicago benefit.
Mr. Scott. Can the rest of the country benefit from what
goes on in Tennessee? Do you disseminate it around the country?
Mr. Whitehurst. The IES has a signature product called What
Works Clearinghouse that examines research on what works,
including issues such as high school completion and dropout
prevention. And that evidence is widely used. It produces
practice guides that combine evidence that provides suggestions
to teachers or school administrators about how to put research
into practice.
It's always a challenge to get knowledge into the field to
have it utilized. There are weaker pressures to do this in
education than in fields like health. And so there needs to be
an active effort----I think a more active effort than we have
now to get the information out, to see that it's available for
people who want to use it.
It would be easier if IES were a business. You could be
paying for ads and other things to get the message out. We have
some constraints. But I think that is a challenge going forward
and one that the agency needs to do a better job of.
Mr. Thompson. The gentleman's time has expired.
I'll take the liberty of the next 5 minutes.
Ms. Stickland, in your testimony you laid out some
compelling reasons we should be concerned about limiting what
personally identifiable information is collected by schools and
States. But you also said you support accountability and
research to determine what works in education.
Do you believe we can protect student privacy while also
helping educators learn what works and what does not so our
children can have the best education possible?
Ms. Stickland. Thank you for the question. I would suggest
that, yes, parents do support research, again. But I think
there needs to be some transparency and fair information
practices around what schools and States are collecting and
disclosing to others. I think the more that parents know and
understand, the more they will trust. And trust is a huge issue
when it comes to, you know, children being in a school system.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you.
Dr. Schwartz, you talked about the need for an emphasis on
research and program evaluation within State departments of
education. Do local school districts view this as a valuable
role for the State departments? And, if so, what is the value
to them? And, if not, what can States do to better help school
districts understand and experience the benefit?
Mr. Schwartz. Thank you. That's a really important
question. And we view districts as our primary clients. And
they are actually our----both our partners in getting the
research done, but the primary source of demand for this
research. So I think much of the demand for strong research
comes from our districts. But school districts also face just a
deluge of voices offering advice and direction. And if research
isn't clearly applicable to their situation, they will quickly
move on.
Too often, I think, even when State departments engage in
high-quality research, what comes back feels overly narrow and
very much tailored to a specific program that if you aren't
running in your district, you have trouble figuring out how to
use that research. And that's why these long-term partnerships
that I mentioned are key. Ideally, though, it will allow you to
focus on learning beyond a single study, just what Dr.
Whitehurst was talking about, and create an engine for
disseminating data and analysis in ways that speak directly to
practitioners.
So we're hoping that with the Tennessee Education Research
Alliance what we'll get is an organization that can take
learning across the many studies that are happening in a single
area in Tennessee and think about, what is that telling us
about a State or district strategy, and how can practitioners
at the school and district level use this to improve.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you.
Dr. Whitehurst, how important is it----I believe in----good
public policy comes from being data driven, good research. How
important is it to have transparency when an agency makes
policy decisions or directions, to provide transparency to the
research that is----that those conclusions are based upon?
Mr. Whitehurst. It would be wonderful if that happened----
Mr. Thompson. It would be.
Mr. Whitehurst.----wouldn't it? And it would be wonderful,
when it happened, if there wasn't kind of manifest cherry-
picking of evidence to support the decision. That's why I think
the availability of an objective source for evidence that bears
on public decision-making, that's free from political
influence, is terrifically important. Because absent that kind
of break, you find a lot of narrative and hand waving about
using evidence, but it's more misused than it is used.
Mr. Thompson. Yeah. And I don't have a specific criticism
within the realm of jurisdiction of this committee with
education. But some of my other responsibilities, bumping up
against other agencies who have refused to reveal the research
that they've utilized to make their decisions, that's not
helpful as a policymaker. And I don't think it's helpful for
the community as a whole.
Dr. Whitehurst, you talked about the need to ensure IES has
an independent administration budget. Are there other ways that
Congress could strengthen the IES' independence?
Mr. Whitehurst. Well, the current legislation is really
quite good. It's viewed as a model by the other research and
evaluation Federal agencies. They envy it. So I would say
Congress has done a very good job there. And if I had specific
recommendations for areas in which I thought the legislation
was lacking, I would have given it to you.
So, really, it's the budget to do the work in terms of
hiring staff and having an office to sit in that's still
subject to political control in the one area where I think
Congress could fix an important issue.
Mr. Thompson. In the few seconds I have left, are there
other areas----you were recommending in a previous response to
a question with the chairman, recommendations that you might
have and you weren't able to get through those, or anything
additional you wanted to list at this point?
Mr. Whitehurst. Well, I just wanted to make the point with
regard to the sharing of data. And I think what we need is an
investment at the State level so that they have the capacity to
protect the privacy of their data. And we need to figure out--
--and we have the capacity but not the funding to do this----
how to make data available to the research community that does
not have personally identifiable elements.
So you can do the analysis to your heart's content, little
Suzy's data are in there, but you can never figure out who
little Suzy is. There's the capacity to do that. We just don't
have that capacity at the State-level, uniformly, to make sure
that data are shared in ways that don't have any threats with
regard to individually identifiable data.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you. My time has expired.
Please recognize the gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Polis,
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Polis. Thank you.
First, we value accuracy on the committee. And I wanted to
bring Ms. Stickland's attention to one of her comments that I
believe to be inaccurate, and I want to give her the chance to
either correct that or give our committee an example.
You cite that K-12 student data currently maintained by
States in their SLDS contains upwards of 700 highly sensitive
personal data elements. I'm certainly not going to dispute the
overall number. It probably depends on how you define an
element and the granularity, and a separate discussion. But
among the examples you cite, including student disciplinary
records, homelessness data, you include immigration status.
I wanted to give you the chance to either retract that,
because it is illegal under the Plyler precedent to collect, no
less include it in a State database, immigration. Or, if it is
correct, if you could tell us what State is doing that so we
can further investigate this violation of our law.
Ms. Stickland. Sure. Thank you for the question. For
instance, in Colorado, there is a data field called migrant,
yes or no.
Mr. Polis. Okay. So that does not relate to immigration
status. That would be for specific funding that comes through
the migrant worker program. Their immigration, that is a
separate----immigrants are not migrant workers. They're
different.
Ms. Stickland. Oh, I think----I think the reference to that
in my testimony----and I'm sorry that you find it inaccurate. I
think the purpose of that is that whether it's a migrant----you
know, if the data field says migrant, yes or no, that could----
that information could be used in the future in ways that maybe
it wasn't initially intended for the Federal reporting.
Mr. Polis. Would you like us to perhaps change immigration
status to migrant workers----migrant worker information?
Ms. Stickland. Migrant status would be fine.
Mr. Polis. Okay.
Ms. Stickland. Thank you for the clarification.
Mr. Polis. Okay. It's whether they are part of our----we
have Federal funding that goes to our migrant programs. And
these are highly mobile students that tend to work seasonally
in certain areas. It's a very small subset of immigrants, both
documented and not, and it has nothing to do with their
immigration status.
Ms. Stickland. Well, I understand that, sir.
Mr. Polis. So I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you.
Ms. Stickland. But I just wanted to clarify that that's the
reason why we're concerned about a data field such as that, is
that it's intended now for a certain purpose. But that doesn't
mean it will be limited to that purpose in the future. And
that's the same with any other data field in a data system.
Mr. Polis. Yes. But the immigration status is not
collected, no less included in a database, so I just wanted to
be clear, under the Plyler decision.
Ms. Stickland. Thank you.
Mr. Polis. I want to go to Mr. Whitehurst. You said of the
Strengthening Education Through Research Act, is your quote: I
strongly support the bill as passed by the House and amended by
the HELP committee. As you know, the bill ultimately failed
both chambers, did not make it through.
In your expert opinion, as a leading educational researcher
and former head of the Institute for Education and Science,
should Congress maintain the bipartisan agreement in SETRA and
move to pass the bill to strengthen the independence of IES,
streamline administrative functions, and improve the relevant
and usefulness of education research?
Mr. Whitehurst. Yes.
Mr. Polis. Thank you.
Dr. Schwartz, as we continue the conversation about data
privacy, one of my concerns is that policies could create
additional paperwork for districts, more work for districts and
teachers. What I hear from educators in the classroom, that's
the last thing we need. In my district, many teachers feel
they're required to do more and more year after year.
There should be a baseline level of privacy that everybody
has to comply with so schools have that privacy assurance as
soon as they start using a product rather than put additional
burden onto the educators. Of course, the other side is that
districts and schools need to develop strong local data
policies as well around both protection and privacy.
Can you talk about what Congress should do in a FERPA
reauthorization to give States like Tennessee or Colorado the
assistance they need to develop these policies?
Mr. Schwartz. I think additional guidance for local-level
policies around privacy would be enormously useful. Because I
do think that there are areas of FERPA, specifically around
things like the ways that data needs to be suppressed----the n-
size comments that you made earlier get at some of this----but
that are interpreted very, very differently jurisdiction to
jurisdiction. And having some guidance on what that looks like
and balancing----I think there always will be and is a balance,
and some tension, between wanting data to be used for research
purposes and understanding that security is at a premium and
that we need schools and districts to do what they can to keep
data safe.
Mr. Polis. And the final question, Dr. Schanzenbach, we can
talk about this endlessly, but in 30 seconds, can you talk
about why the data is so important in determining how to
allocate our limited dollars to have the optimal results? How
can data better guide us having the best positive educational
impact with the limited resources we have?
Ms. Schanzenbach. We need the research to tell us, you
know, what works and what doesn't work, and, you know,
redistribute to things that do work the things that don't.
Mr. Polis. Thank you.
Yield back.
Mr. Thompson. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize the gentlelady from Oregon, Ms. Bonamici,
for 5 minutes.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank
you, Ranking Member Polis, for having this hearing. And thank
you to all of the witnesses. This has been a very good and
important conversation, and I'm glad there's agreement among
all of us that we benefit from research and we also need
privacy. So we're starting out with that agreement.
I want to thank Mr. Polis for clarifying the record on
immigration status. As someone who's very concerned about the,
perhaps, eroding trust, if we sent the message that was
collected information. We have already a lot of students who
are fearful and families who are concerned about increased
efforts to enforce. And when we have families not participating
in parent-student conferences, for example, and kids are afraid
to go to school because they don't know if their parents will
be there when they get home, we don't want to send that
message. We want students to attend school and feel safe there
and be safe there. And our Supreme Court has held that they're
entitled to go to public education without regard to their
status.
So schools and families in Oregon benefit from rigorous and
relevant research that's supported by the Institute of
Education Sciences and the State's longitudinal data system. My
alma mater, University of Oregon, has used funding from IES to
develop evidence-based reading interventions that are in
practice in schools today and are improving student outcomes.
For example, Durham Elementary School in Tigard, they're
making some great gains in reading by using these
interventions. And that was made possible by data collected
about students.
Beaverton School District, which is where my kids went to
school, collects extensive data on discipline in schools. And
it's partnered with the area's regional educational laboratory,
which is also funded through IES, to compare data with other
school systems and develop best practices. And they have seen a
40 percent drop in exclusionary discipline from doing that
research and that work.
So, by all means, we must protect student data. But we also
need to promote robust protections while furthering research
that really helps with student success. And I think a good
example of this balance can be found in Oregon's longitudinal
data system. We use multiple layers of protection, including
encryption, deidentify student data, all while supporting
important research.
So, Dr. Schanzenbach, Oregon has dedicated extensive time
and resources to develop that data system, and by gathering
data that allowed the States to do the longitudinal analysis
versus just year by year, Oregon's been able to support student
achievement. We found that the year a student becomes
proficient in English matters a great deal. Non-native speakers
who achieve proficiency in English by the eighth grade graduate
at a higher rate than native English speakers. And those who
achieve proficiency by the ninth grade have graduation rates
below average. So Oregon's been able to direct ELL funding and
policy to support earlier interventions.
So can you speak of other examples of how State
longitudinal data systems can support student achievement and
also benefit professional development, assessment literacy, and
data-driven decision making?
Ms. Schanzenbach. There are so many examples of this. I'll
go into one, but I can answer, you know, more. I can talk about
this all day, unfortunately.
So we have a partnership with Evanston Township High
School, with Northwestern, that was funded by IES. And we have
worked together with them to answer some research questions
that they have that they just don't have the internal capacity
to answer. So, for example, they were interested in trying to
understand what would happen if they expanded access to
advanced placement biology classes. So are those kids who are
qualified to either take advanced placement or regular biology,
are they better served by getting pushed into the AP class?
What we found for them was, yeah, the answer is yes. So
let's challenge kids to take AP. They do better. They take more
AP classes. There's just lots of spillover benefits. It doesn't
hurt the kids who are already in the AP to have a couple of,
you know, students who are sort of more on the margin. So
that's an example.
Our graduate students at Northwestern got to answer that
question. So it was really important for them to help learn,
you know, how to do research and how to interact, you know,
asking rigorous, relevant questions. I think that's just
another example of really good research that helps kids.
Ms. Bonamici. Terrific. Thank you.
And Oregon passed, a couple years ago, the Oregon Student
Information Protection Act at the State level. It prevents ed-
tech companies from selling student information and targeting
advertising to students using specific information to send ads
or creating a profile about a student unless it's for school
purposes. They also require companies to have reasonable
security measures in place, delete student information when the
school asks them to delete it, and then clarifies where and
when they can use student information.
So can you talk about the relative threat posed by the
storage of information in a statewide data system versus that
of the students' increasing use of technology in the classroom?
Ms. Schanzenbach. I can say, as a parent, I'm much more
concerned about what my kid is doing on the internet than this
secure data being made accessible to researchers.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you.
And I see my time has expired. I yield back. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Thompson. The gentlelady's time has expired.
I want to thank our witnesses for taking time to testify
before the subcommittee today. Your time and your expertise is
very much appreciated.
I now recognize Ranking Member Polis for any closing
remarks that he may have.
Mr. Polis. Are we doing a second round of questions or are
we just doing closing remarks?
Okay. Let me see here.
Okay. Well, I want to thank all four of our witnesses for
coming. From our discussion today, I think it's clear that
supporting privacy is paramount to our work, along with
supporting education data research. And that's an area I expect
we'll have continued bipartisan support.
The Every Student Succeeds Act contains key civil rights
provisions that will help ensure that every student receives a
great education and that schools are held accountable for
performance and school districts as well. And, of course, one
of the key ways we know how schools are performing is we look
at data.
We also need to know what programs are working and which
ones are not, particularly as we look for wasteful spending so
that we can cut that. Using reliable, de-identified, protected
data is a key part of identifying what works and what doesn't
work.
We've had some great testimony about experience using data
to help improve our education system, the value smart data can
provide. At the same time, our data privacy laws have to keep
up with innovations in technology. And educational technology
can and should and is and will be a force for good in closing
the achievement gap and opening doors for personalized
education. And, at the same time, we need smart privacy laws
that parents and students and teachers can feel good about,
protect their privacy, and can have confidence that companies
or States or districts won't be using student data
irresponsibly or failing to protect student data.
In a bipartisan fashion, I hope this committee continues
its work with teachers, with parents, with privacy advocates,
with educational technology companies, with school districts,
with States to reauthorize FERPA and SETRA, and pass a new law
to provide smart privacy guardrails for the increasingly
important educational technologies that are already deployed in
our schools and those that will be deployed.
I look forward to continuing this work on a bipartisan
basis. This hearing is an excellent first step.
And I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Thompson. The gentleman yields back, and I thank him
for his leadership.
I now recognize myself for closing comments.
You know, the Education Science Reform Act was created to
update and improve efforts to support education research to
improve schools, but the law may not be meeting, obviously, all
of its goals. The 2013 Government Accountability Office report
found several weaknesses in the law that have to be addressed,
and that's why we reauthorize and a chance to make things right
going forward.
Congress passed the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act
in 1974, by my calculations, about 43 years ago, to protect
student privacy. Quite frankly, most of our staff were not
alive at that point, and a significant number of our colleagues
were not alive at that point. It's time, it is certainly beyond
time.
You know, the purpose of this hearing today was to learn
from States, parents, stakeholders how they protect student
privacy and utilize education research, including suggestions
on how to reform the Education Science Reform Act and update
the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. I think we've
really----once again, I want to thank the panel that we had
here today. You got us a great start on that journey. It is a
journey, and we have a lot more work to do. But thank you for
your contributions today. It's appreciated.
Without objection, there being no further business, the
subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Additional submissions by Mr. Polis follow:]
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[Additional submission by Chairman Rokita follow:]
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[Additional submission by Ms. Stickland follows:]
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[Questions submitted for the record and their responses
follow:]
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[Dr. Schanzenbach responses to questions submitted for the
record follow:]
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[Dr. Schwartz responses to questions submitted for the
record follow:]
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[Dr. Whitehurst responses to questions submitted for the
record follow:]
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[Whereupon, at 11:06 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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