Statewide Longitudinal Data System (SLDS) Survey 2023-2025

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), within the U.S. Department of Education, is requesting clearance to continue the Statewide Longitudinal Data System (SLDS) Survey collection, which is intended to provide insight on State and U.S. territory SLDS capacity for automated linking of K-12, teacher, postsecondary, workforce, career and technical education (CTE), adult education, and early childhood data. Historically, SLDS has collected information annually from State Education Agencies (SEAs) and has helped inform NCES ongoing evaluation and targeted technical assistance efforts to enhance the quality of the SLDS Program’s support to States regarding systems development, enhancement, and use. The request to conduct all activities related to SLDS 2021-2023, including materials and procedures, was approved by OMB in October 2021 (OMB#1859-0933 v.10), This new request is to conduct all activities related to SLDS 2023-25, continuing usage of the Qualtrics information collection tool initiated in the 2023 collection. The appendices include updated communications, webinars, and Qualtrics instrument screenshots related to the SLDS 2023-25 collection. While minor adjustments were made to questions and language, the primary change proposed in this package is a shift from an annual to a biennial collection. Nationwide, SLDS system capacity changes frequently (ex. Infrastructure enhancements, evolving P20W agency collaborations, State legislation impacts, etc.), but analysis demonstrates that the COVID-19 pandemic stagnated the work to some extent. The 2019-20 Statistics in Brief and accompanying data file (anticipated May 2023 publication release) indicate very little change in results over the two-year period, indicating that shifting to an every-other-year collection would allow for more timely releases of data, with no adverse effect on the integrity of the information.

The latest form for Statewide Longitudinal Data System (SLDS) Survey 2023-2025 expires 2026-10-31 and can be found here.