The system officially got underway during the 2019-2020 fiscal year with an 18-month planning process. The goal of that process, which is being spearheaded by a multi-agency work group, is to generate recommendations on connecting “education, workforce, financial aid and social service information” to deal with “disparities in opportunities” and improve outcomes for students around the state. Among the takeaways from a recent update to state lawmakers:
- So-called “partner entities,” i.e., state agencies and stakeholders, are planning for the system’s proposed teacher retention dashboard — despite the Legislature holding until this month funds appropriated in July 2019, to give lawmakers more time to review the data system’s proposed model. According to the report: “Given the need for more information to respond to the impact of the pandemic on an already-strained teacher workforce, this dashboard would help state policymakers better understand and address teacher shortages, which are being exacerbated by the pandemic, in an equitable manner.” The work group is using key questions and information from an advisory group to create “sketches of potential visualizations” for the dashboard that can be shared with “priority audiences. This pre-work will enable the dashboard to be stood up more quickly once the proof of concept (POC) or data system are funded. Other POC activities include improving infrastructure in the California Department of Education’s CALPADS data system to support scaling CaliforniaColleges.edu, and supporting rural regions so they can use that site.
- The data system, which was first funded during the 2019-2020 fiscal year with $10 million in one-time, non-Prop. 98 General Fund monies, had spent about $4 million of that by the end of March. In his proposed FY 2021-2022 state budget, Gov. Gavin Newsom calls for authorizing the remaining FY 2019-20 funds “for specific startup costs.” Newsom also proposes $14.5 million in non-Prop. 98 General Fund monies for the project — $11.5 million ongoing and $3 million one-time — for a new “Cradle to Career” office in the California Government Operations Agency (GovOps); and another $3.8 million in ongoing Prop. 98 General Fund money for “statewide scaling” of the California College Guidance Initiative, a college planning and advising tool now used by some school districts. The work group recommends “leveraging” $6 million of the remaining planning phase funds this year, to “modernize the CDE’s CALPADS data system and pilot the proposed technology solution as a proof of concept.” The work group also recommends appropriating $15 million to $20 million a year starting July 1, as proposed in the governor’s budget for expenses including covering “staffing costs for the managing entity, a limited number of positions for key data providers,” and scaling CaliforniaColleges.edu.
- Based on a look at types of data that are considered sensitive in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and state regulations in the California Information Practices Act, the work group recommends taking a “very conservative approach” to identifying personally identifiable information, “data that should be subject to protections to maintain individual privacy.” Combining these frameworks, “any information that is about a person would be considered sensitive” according to the report, including characteristics like gender or disability status, education and “participating in social services” like getting state-sponsored health care or food assistance. The work group recommends “a simple data classification scheme” that would identify information that “pertains to an individual” as personal, and identify information on institutions, like the address of a high school, as “public data points.” Data points that would be included in the data system have been screened for privacy, and data that contains sensitive information “will be masked by using a de-identification protocol.”
- The work group’s proposals on security requirements are “based on a data security framework that reflects federal recommendations” and lines up with requirements from the California Department of Technology and the California Department of General Services. Criteria in its framework would ultimately be used by GovOps as the data system’s managing entity. The data security framework will guide a “preliminary permissions protocol,” determining who can access the data system and the granularity of information they’ll be able to see. It was also used to create an incident response plan first draft laying out how GovOps would address security breaches. Both of these documents will continue to be refined. The framework has been used to evaluate security and privacy policies in place at CaliforniaColleges.edu and to define requirements like a “security authentication methodology,” ensuring that someone who accesses sensitive information in the data system is actually the person to whom permission was given.
