EDFACTS SUPPORT FOR STATE EDUCATION AGENCIES

The Department of Education intends to issue two new contracts to the State Education Agencies (SEAs) for New York and Louisiana to support long term improvement of data collection through EDFacts. Final regulations published on January 25, 2007 under 72 FR 3698 require SEAs to use the EDFacts system for submission of all data collected by EDFacts beginning with data collected for SY 2008-09. The SEAs possess unique capabilities in the collection of data from the districts and reporting of that data to the U.S. Department of Education as required for EDFacts. This reporting is a responsibility of the SEA. No other source would be able to access the SEAs' EDFacts reporting systems or the data therein, nor have any binding authority over an SEA's internal data coordination processes. Participation in the Partnership System for the data coordination activities will involve a relationship between the SEA EDFacts Coordinator and OPEPD. The EDFacts Coordinator will be responsible for all data coordination activities and data coordination matters concerning the Partnership System. These contracts aim to facilitate seamless reporting of complete and timely data to ED and the public. This would be accomplished through steps taken to improve data usage and reporting capabilities within the SEA, including but not limited to: expanding guidance available to Local Education Agencies (LEAs) to improve the quality of their data submissions, automating standard EDFacts reporting formats and enhancing linkages between EDFacts reporting tools and the state's longitudinal student data system.