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​What is ILDS?

The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), along with our Education Partners, is now actively moving forward with the design and development of the state-wide Illinois Longitudinal Data System (ILDS).  The system, when fully deployed, will provide data to help to track the outcomes of Illinois students as they progress from Pre-K through Postsecondary education, and as they enter the workforce.  Longitudinal data supports an in-depth, comprehensive view of students’ progress and will ultimately help guide policymakers on where to invest time and energy to most effectively improve student achievement in our State.

The ILDS is defined by Public Act 96-0107 and enabled through federal funding, and instructs the State Board of Education to link student test scores, length of enrollment and graduation records over time.  The system also will connect students to career planning and resources, with the potential to facilitate the application process for financial aid and records for transfer students.

​ILDS will serve a large stakeholder group, including:

• Illinois State Board of Education
• Local Education Authorities
• Regional offices of education and intermediate service centers
• Parents and other members of the general public
• State Legislatures
• News media
• Research organizations
• Postsecondary Institutions
• State workforce and higher education agencies
• Education Partners

In preparation for the implementation of LDS, ISBE has put in place key building blocks that support the gathering of data, while ensuring the privacy of the individual student’s information.  A state-wide student identifier system is now in place, and is actively being used to link student records along their academic path.  This unique identifier removes the need to use personal identifiers to help track individuals. 

Project activities include working with the stakeholders to define the appropriate data access rights for each group while preserving the privacy of individuals per Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Illinois School Student Records Act (ISSRA).

Illinois has received two federal grants that help provide funding for the ILDS project.  The initial Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems grant is comprised of five major components:

1. Establishment of Data Advisory Committee – The Committee consists of a broad group of stakeholders that advise ISBE and its Education Partners on data use and data management. This group helps define the data gathering and reporting requirements for ILDS, along with advising on data coordination across agencies.
2. Development of an Enterprise-wide Data Architecture – This provides the blueprint for the ILDS Data Warehouse, establishing standard data definitions for reporting and data transaction sets that support interoperability with partner systems.
3. Improved Data Quality through Data Stewardship- ISBE has established a system of data stewards that are responsible for data quality and data management, including developing processes for statistical checks of LEA data submissions, and for supporting and expanding training opportunities to improve data quality.
4. Development of an Education Enterprise Data Warehouse – This effort puts in place the infrastructure, tools, and data constructs that enable analysis and research of student level data. ISBE will link their student-level data to other student-level data to enable analysis and research, and will also build Data Marts to support federal reporting, streamlining the processing to construct these reports.
5. Linking of the ISBE Unique Student Identifier with Postsecondary and Employment Data – This effort broadens analysis and research opportunities by establishing data sharing agreements and the technical links between ISBE, postsecondary, and employment systems and data. With these links in place state level education and employment agencies will have access to shared data supporting long-term longitudinal studies and other research efforts.

The second grant, the Statewide Longitudinal Data System Recovery Act Grant, is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Referred to as the ILDS Expansion Project, it is comprised of four interrelated components:

1. Establish a Statewide Transcript System for Middle and High School Students – This system collects student-level transcript information, including information on courses enrolled, completed, and grades earned, and also included the implementation of a statewide course classification system.
2. Integrate Student-level Data with Teacher and Administrator Data – ISBE will redesign its teacher and administrator data collection systems to permit integration of student-level data with teacher and administrator data.
3. Continued Expansion and Development of Postsecondary Education Data Systems – ISBE and its state education partners will expand upon current postsecondary education data systems to included data from private postsecondary educational institutions, data from out-of-state institutions of higher education, and workforce and employment data.  This expansion will also include the development of enhanced public reporting tools to provide postsecondary educational institutions, LEAs, and the public with information on a variety of useful measures addressing postsecondary education performance.
4. Expansion of Early Childhood Data Collection Systems – the state longitudinal system collects data on children participating in state-funded prekindergarten programs and special education early childhood programs.  Through the ILDS Expansion Project, ISBE now collects data from infant and toddler programs that are funded through the Early Childhood Block Grant into the state longitudinal data system to capture information on all of the state-funded programs in Illinois serving children from birth to five.