Academic, and often social, success is determined well before students enter elementary school education and the importance of early childhood programs in ecducation is well recognized by states. Data management solutions are vital for tracking students through this journey. They enable agencies and program providers to efficiently collect and apply information about state and local early childhood education programs and their outcomes and are vital to assessing their success.
Early education data management means being able to create a common approach to early childhood data that is used by the state and aligning it with key program and policy outcomes. When it is established robustly it means that the quality and security of data reported, collected and used by education providers and agencies is enhanced. This reduces the burden for staff at the frontlines and communication, collaboration and relationships between agencies, programs and IT staff is improved.
Data management as a whole refers to the means by which organizations and groups make decisions about their collective use of information assets. It establishes who has responsibility for the data and encourages program staff to continuously and collaboratively ensure the quality of the data through the creation and implementation of policies, roles, responsibilities and procedures. Whether supporting one or more education sectors and effective data management model is founded on the following principles:
• Coordination – agencies and programs that contribute to early education information systems must be represented at the implementation and leadership stages.
• Responsibility – agencies and programs, IT functions and leadership all hold distinct decision-making authority and the relationship between these roles must be clearly delineated.
• Consistency – data must be represented in a consistent fashion if it is to be effective: agencies and programs must establish common data definitions, business case and processes for managing data consistently and effectively.
• Leadership – an overall data management coordinator should be appointed to facilitate inter-agency and program data management.
Early education program governance and data governance are both critical to achieving desired policy outcomes and goals but they are different processes. Program governance oversees the entire scope of the early education effort, including establishing overarching aims and goals. Data governance is used to deliver data about programs and to manage how information assets can be used to help achieve these aims and goals. Early education data management is an integral part of the process of ensuring positive early education outcomes.
