Common Education Data Standards or CEDS - Past, Present and Future

Common Education Data Standards or CEDS is intended to set an electronic and procedural standard for collecting, reporting and sharing educational information between many entities. Common Education Data Standards are a logical data model, not a physical data model. It describes data formatting, metadata to be used such as identifications of each educational level and the information to be gathered. It does not specify the hardware or software to be used to collect and process this information. CEDS is not managed or enforced by the federal government, though following Common Education Data Standards does ensure that a school or educational program has collected information necessary to meet federal reporting requirements such as No Child Left Behind.

CEDS Data Model

The Common Education Data Standards data model contains a Domain Entity Schema or DES. The early learning domain is abbreviated as EL. Elementary through secondary education with grades Kindergarten through 12th is abbreviated as K12. College, university and trade school education is denoted as PS.
The CEDS Normalized Data Schema or NDS is a conceptual model. It shows the relationships between organizations, people and learning processes. What is the role of each organization, such as teaching or testing? What people are expected to perform each role? People can perform more than one role, such as when a teacher in 12th grade also administers the exams necessary to graduate or offers career counseling. While parents have a role in a child's education, teachers, testing personnel, counselors and administrators fill most of the roles in the CEDS data model.

CEDS captures information such as the courses children take, the programs they are enrolled in and the teachers involved. CEDS also records "incidents", such as disciplinary infractions and criminal acts. This is related to but not the same as a child's disciplinary record. A fight or prank is a single incident, whether one child was involved or if ten were involved.

History of the Standard
Before CEDS, reported reading assessment scores and educational mastery reporting varied wildly between states. Crossing state lines could result in students who theoretically read much better than their neighbors because the passing score or requirements for passing exams were much lower. The definition of "acceptable" and "unacceptable" were also subject to political pressure, with standards lowered in some cases to result in rosier numbers for school districts and states. The joke of a passing score being lowered to a 50 so that most children passed their math test was not really a joke. It was done in New York state in 2005 because too many kids were "failing". It was easier to adjust the definition of passing. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 included a mandate to create a common P-20 data standard across all states to ensure that data shared between states, institutions and governments is consistent and comparable.
Common Education Data Standards are as of 2012 voluntary. Common Education Data Standards version 2 was released in January, 2012. CEDS version 2 includes standards on early learning for children before enrolling in Kindergarten as secondary (college and university) students. Common Education Data Standards version 3 will include workforce data standards such as employee educational attainment reporting and tracking workplace educational requirements such as food handling permitting and OSHA safety training.

Setting the CEDS Standard
The National Center for Education Statistics managed the prior technical working group that created CEDS version 1. It developed a Stakeholder Group for the creation of version 2.0 and future versions of CEDS. CEDS standards are open to public comment as well as feedback from institutions.

CEDS Standards in the Future
The long term goal is automated reporting of student scores by grade, race, age and demographic (disabled, English Second Language, Special Education) to the state and federal governments in a timely manner. The material to be testing and the definition of passing would be common across all groups, though there would be local variations in areas such as state history. Automated and electronic reporting would allow parents access to information such as the aggregate scores of their schools and surrounding schools. Local administrators cannot withhold data to protect their reputations. By reporting the data electronically, schools eliminate the need to report their test scores to state commissions, local newspapers and curious parents. Theoretically, the CEDS makes individual schools and even teachers accountable, though this requires the will to fire poor performing educators and actual reform of failing schools. CEDS also has the potential of creating a life long transcript, recording skill assessments and online learning for adults as they take continuing education courses, online classes and on the job training courses.