The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) increased accountability and reporting requirements regarding student academic achievement. In order to better respond to these and other federal and state reporting requirements, ISBE and the IBM Corporation developed a state-level student information system. Through the project students will be assigned a unique identification number. All data to and from the state will use that unique identifier. The use of individual student records will:
- increase the state's capacity to follow a student's progress over time;
- provide better quality data to drive more enlightened policy decisions resulting in enhanced educational opportunities for all children;
- reduce data collection burden on schools and districts; and
- enhance the use and relevance of state data by districts and schools.
