August 2007

This memorandum provides important information on the determination of 2007-08 accountability status and requirements for reporting data to the Student Information Repository System (SIRS) in 2006-07 and 2007-08. This memorandum is divided into the following sections:

• Accountability Status and Timelines—department procedures and timelines for notifying districts and schools of their 2007-08 accountability status,
• Procedures for Verifying Data for Accountability—district and charter school procedures for verifying data used to make accountability decisions,
• 2006-07 Procedures for Submitting High School Data to SIRS—district procedures for submitting historical STEP data to SIRS,
• The Student information Repository System—district responsibilities for participating in the SIRS in the 2006-07 and 2007-08 school years, and
• Sources for Additional Information—A list of references for additional information

Please share this memorandum with other staff in your district who need this information and keep it for future reference.

1.  Accountability Status and Timelines

nySTART will provide for each district, component school, and charter school a preview of the accountability section of the State report card showing the prospective accountability status on each accountability measure. This report will assist districts, component schools, and charter schools in determining whether the data used for accountability are accurate and will allow those that will be subject to sanctions under No Child Left Behind in the 2007-08 school year to develop plans for implementing those requirements. The reports will also show participation rates; performance indices for English, mathematics and science; accountability graduation rates; and adequate yearly progress determinations for each accountability group and measure. Districts, component schools, and charter schools that believe that their accountability status is inaccurate can correct that status by correcting student records in SIRS within the designated “appeal period.” At the end of that period, SED will review and update the accountability status of districts, component schools, and charter schools based on the corrected data in the Level 2 Repository. There will be separate verification periods for elementary-middle level accountability and secondary-level accountability.  The timeline for elementary-level accountability is provided below.  The timeline for secondary-level accountability will be provided, when available, at the following URL:  http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/irts/accountability/2006-07/timeline.html. Any updates to the elementary-middle level timeline will also be provided at that site.

The Department’s projected timeline for providing verification reports and previews of the elementary-middle level accountability section of the report card is as follows:

August 9           Verification of performance on the elementary- and middle-level assessments in science and social studies; the New York State Alternate Assessment; and Reading First assessments

August 21         Grade 3-8 Accountability Verification Reports

August 28         Preview Accountability Report Card with 2007-08 district/school accountability status (for grades 3-8)

Sept 10             Deadline for districts to certify accuracy of elementary- and middle-level data. 

Sept 18             Release of district/school improvement lists to the media

2.  Procedures for Verifying Data for Accountability

Through nySTART, SED will provide verification reports for reviewing the data used to make accountability decisions, as well as the assessment and other outcome data to be reported on the district and school report cards. These verification reports may be accessed by individuals with district or schoolwide authorization to access nySTART. Prototypes of these verification reports can be previewed at the following URL: http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/irts/nystart/2007/VerificationReportPrototypes.shtml.

Assessment Verification Reports for Grades 3-8. nySTART provided reports in the same format as provided in 2005-06 for verification of 2006-07 performance on the elementary- and middle-level assessments in science and social studies; the New York State Alternate Assessment; and Reading First assessments.

Accountability Verification Reports for Grades 3-8. nySTART will provide accountability verification reports in the same format as provided in 2005-06 for districts and schools to verify data used to determine accountability status for 2007-08.

Secondary-level Accountability. Through nySTART, SED will make available verification reports for high school data used to determine accountability status. The reports will allow staff to verify that the appropriate students are being used to determine district and school participation rates, performance indices for English and mathematics, and graduation rates. Data will be provided for each district and school and for each accountability group within the district and school. In addition, for each student included in the grade 12 participation group, the 2003 accountability cohort, or the 2002 graduation-rate cohort, the following information will be provided: name, State and local student ID, birth date, gender, race/ethnicity, disability status, limited English proficiency status, enrollment ending dates and reasons, assessment dates and scores, credentials earned, and record of enrollment in a GED program. Please refer to the section, 2006-07 Procedures for Submitting High School Data to SIRS, in this document for information on submitting historical high school data to SIRS.

Secondary-level Annual Results. SED will also make available reports for use in verifying State assessment results, credentials earned, and students discharged for each assessment administration period. The annual assessment report will be available for the first time in August 2007 and will show records for all Regents examinations, Regents competency tests, Second Language Proficiency Examinations, and Component Retests reported to the Level 2 Repository. The report will provide counts of students scoring at each performance level and records of assessment results for individual students. The High School Annual Services Report, available in Fall 2007, will provide counts of credentials earned and other student discharges counted as dropouts; career and technical education participation; and postgraduate plans. This report will be available after each examination administration period during the 2007-08 school year.  Verifying data after each administration will facilitate the verification of data for accountability during the summer of 2008.

3.  2006-07 Procedures for Submitting High School Data to SIRS

Districts and charter schools should have already submitted student demographic and enrollment data for students enrolled in grades K-12 at any time during the 2006-07 school year. They must also submit test scores for all State assessments taken during the 2006-07 school year (August 2006-June 2007) and records for all credentials awarded during that period. For SED to calculate the performance of high school cohorts in English, mathematics, science, U.S. history and global studies, and the percentage of students in each cohort that have graduated, districts must provide historical data to SIRS for students who first entered grade 9 in the 2001-02 or a later school year.  To facilitate that process, SED has provided software to the Big 5 districts and the Regional Information Centers (RICs) that can be used to extract required data from the district’s 2006 STEP file and transform it to the proper format for submission to SIRS. The district must obtain a unique student identifier from NYSSIS for each student whose records must be submitted to the repository. If administrators have any concerns about the accuracy of data in their STEP file, the data should be reviewed and corrected before submission to SIRS. Districts outside the Big 5 can obtain assistance with this process from their RIC.  The Big 5 districts will provide procedures for school administrators to review and correct their school data.

4.  The Student information Repository System

As you know, the State Education Department (SED) has developed a Student Information Repository System (SIRS) to reduce the local burden of data collection, provide data analysis tools to local educational agencies, and provide a consistent and widely understood approach for collecting, storing, analyzing and using data about students into this system. The goal is to consolidate the Department’s collection of data based on individual student data. In 2005-06, all K-8 data were submitted through SIRS. In the 2006-07 school year, all high school data elements formerly reported through STEP will be reported through the SIRS. In the 2007-08 school year, enrollment data now collected through the Basic Educational Data System (BEDS) and selected data on students with disabilities now collected through the Pupil with Disabilities (PD) systems will be collected through SIRS.

A key element of SIRS is the New York State Student Identification System (NYSSIS). SED developed this system to assign a stable, unique student identifier to every pre-kindergarten through grade 12 student in New York State. Unique identifiers enhance student data reporting and improve data quality and ensure that students can be tracked longitudinally as they transfer between districts. In 2007-08, school districts and charter schools must obtain unique identifiers for all enrolled students in grades prekindergarten through 12 and all students for whom they have committee on special education responsibility.

nySTART. SED is committed to providing administrators and teachers with the capacity to use the information in the repository system to improve instruction and, thereby, student performance. SED’s contractor, the Grow Network, has implemented a Web-based Analytical Tool, nySTART, that district and school staff can use to view student records stored on the Level 2 Repositories. Educators can use nySTART to:

• create standard reports and analyses, using data from the grades 3-8 English language arts and mathematics assessments, the New York State Alternate Assessment (NYSAA), and, ultimately, other State assessments, including Regents examinations;
• verify data for school report cards, accountability decisions, and other public reporting before submission to SED; and
• access the New York State Report Cards before they are publicly available.

Using the public interface to nySTART, the public will have access to district and school report cards and a database of school and district data used in the report cards. 

SED staff understand that district and school staff have experienced significant frustration with the performance of nySTART. We are working closely with staff from the Grow Network to ensure that nySTART performance improves substantially. Several months will be required to fully implement these performance improvements.  We ask your patience as the Grow Network makes these improvements.  Specific problems with nySTART performance can be sent to the following email address: mailto:nystart@mail.nysed.gov.

The Unique Identifier Auditing System. SED has initiated a system for auditing unique identifiers assigned by NYSSIS. This system will help to ensure that:

• two districts or two schools within a district do not submit records with the same unique student identifier showing simultaneous enrollment;
• appropriate records for each student with a unique identifier claimed by each school district or charter school are reported; and
• students who are reported as dropouts have not enrolled in another diploma-granting program. (When such students are found, the district that reported the student as a dropout will be notified.)

This system will assist administrators in correcting erroneous enrollment beginning and ending dates on student records do not result in districts or schools being incorrectly accountable for students, by identifying cases where two students have inadvertently been assigned the same unique identifier, and by locating dropouts who have enrolled in another diploma-granting program. Notification of problems in district data found by the audit is sent to school superintendents and charter school principals by email. In future audit reports, each student’s local ID as well as their State ID will be provided. Until SED implements a plan to copy the chief information officer or data administrator on the email, we request that you forward the email to that person.

Reporting Requirements for 2007-08. District and School enrollments by grade, gender and race/ethnicity will be collected through the BEDS online system, as well as through the SIRS in 2007-08. District and School counts of limited English proficient students and students with disabilities will not be collected through the BEDS online system in 2007-08. Rather these counts will be based on counts of appropriate program service records in the Level 2 Repository. All districts must have enrollment records for all enrolled students and all out-of-district placements on the Level 2 Repository by October 30, 2007. The Basic Education Data System Enrollment Verification Report based on enrollment on October 3, 2007 will be available through nySTART.  The verification process must be completed by November 15, 2007. Each school and district must complete a BEDS online form by October 26, 2007 to provide enrollment counts and other data historically collected through BEDS, such as staff counts, students suspended, library and technology resources, and free- and reduced-price lunch data. BEDS online will collect data on violent and disruptive incidents for 2006-07 and for 2007-08. In the future, we expect to collect those data through SIRS.

The Special Education Data Collection and Reporting (SEDCAR) office will use the repository in 2007-08 to collect many of the data elements traditionally collected on the PD forms as well as new data elements required by the re-authorization of IDEA. More information about these requirements may be found in a June 19, 2007 memorandum from Rebecca Cort and Johanna Duncan-Poitier, which may be found at the following URL: http://www.vesid.nysed.gov/specialed/data/collection0708.htm.

Local Data Systems. The key to successful participation in the statewide data system is a district student management system that contains accurate and complete data for State reporting and subscribes to the appropriate standards for format and content. Districts that accomplish this goal will find that transferring data to the Level 1 Repository is an efficient process. Districts are strongly advised to appoint a data administrator to coordinate and lead the collection of data, oversee changes in and maintenance of the local data management system, and chair a committee of district staff charged with ensuring the accuracy of data. This individual should have the authority to assign tasks and deadlines, as required.

Federal Reporting Requirements. In a parallel effort to the SIRs, the federal government is requiring that states submit required data through the EDEN reporting system. SIRs will be the source for most required federal data.  Therefore, it is imperative that districts that received federal funding under any of the Title programs identify the students served by those titles in the repository system and provide all other required data for those students.  More information can be found in the Dictionary of Reporting Data Elements, referenced below.

5.  Sources for Additional Information

cc:         District Superintendents of Schools

              Regional information Center Directors

              Big 5 Data Coordinators