The Alberta Teachers’ Association

Crossing boundaries to research the impacts on public education 

Datafication is one of the most significant developments in schools around the world today. Data in various forms—from attendance and behaviour records to grades and standardized test results—now shape the work of policymakers, administrators and teachers in the classroom. But we have moved on from the time when data were collected and stored locally in notebooks and filing cabinets to a time in which data are rapidly passed through networks that connect schools, education systems, private companies and other organizations. The computerization of administration, learning and assessment has created conditions in which large volumes of digital data are produced in standard formats and flow from one place to another.

Understanding how data are being used in schools requires working across multiple scales. We can think about schools as sitting within a series of increasingly larger units that shape their work. A school is like the smallest matryoshka doll in a set. In Canada, for example, a school sits within a school board, which sits within a provincial education system and, in turn, a national approach to education. The largest doll is the global space in which we now think about education. For example, international organizations such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) increasingly shape the work of schools through tests like the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Data flow between each of these different nested scales and it is important to understand how this occurs and how it affects public education. 

The Data in Schools and School Systems project is an international study of education data in schools and school systems. The project is being conducted with schools in Alberta and British Columbia, as well as the U.S., Australia and Japan.1 The project aims to understand the development of data infrastructure, or the plumbing through which data flows. We are all familiar with infrastructure in the form of the roads, rails, pipes and wires that connect urban spaces. The cables that connect computers and databases are part of this infrastructure. But what is of most interest is how these new infrastructures are changing the way that schooling works.

One of the most significant changes is the demand for interoperability and the adoption of data standards. These may seem like pretty uninteresting technical issues, but they will have a dramatic impact on schooling—from the way whole systems are governed to how teaching gets done in the classroom. As Keller Easterling (2014) writes, ‘[i]nfrastructure space has become a medium of information. The information resides in invisible, powerful activities that determine how objects and content are organized and circulated. Infrastructure space, with the power and currency of software, is an operating system…” (p. 13). The ability to decide and design the format of data now comes with significant power to influence how schools and school systems work. Those who develop the operating system get to operate the system.

Australia provides an exemplary case of the development of data infrastructure. Individual schools purchase software to manage data at the local level. Schooling is managed by state governments, and each state education department has used different software to collect, store and analyze data. The federal government also plays a role in schooling, including the oversight of the development of a national curriculum. One rationale for developing a national curriculum was to ensure that students could move from state to state without missing or repeating parts of their education. Of course, it makes sense for student records to also be transferable across systems, which means that each system needs to adopt a standard format for these data. And this is exactly what is happening. School systems around Australia are adopting Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) standards to ensure that data can be shared seamlessly between schools, systems and software providers. 

This is a familiar story. The U.S. has been undergoing a similar experience since the introduction of Common Core Standards (CCS) in 2010. The CCS are designed to ensure consistent expectations of the knowledge and skills that students will gain at school across different states. Many state education departments in the U.S. are also adopting SIF standards, which enable the integration of CCS with their data systems. Notably, Bill Gates was the driving force behind the development of SIF standards and the CCS. Education technology companies have played an influential role in shaping these standards. And the reason why one of the world’s most influential tech magnates might champion learning and data standards for schooling points to why the development of data infrastructure will reshape public education.

Standardization creates new markets. For example, each state education system in Australia has bought or developed software for managing their data based upon their unique needs. Each time a school system bought a new software package, it had to be designed from scratch or adapted to meet particular needs. But once each system adopts the same data standards, the companies that develop these products can more easily sell them to other systems as well. Rather than developing products on a case-by-case basis, companies can reduce development costs relative to profits by developing generic products for larger markets. 

When education companies know how schools and systems manage their data, they can use this information to design new products. In Australia, companies are increasingly able to see “mock data” from specific schools and systems before they have been contracted to develop specific products for them. As a result, they will be able to put more products on the shelf that can be sold to schools. Companies can also offer to manage data for systems. Indeed, we are likely to see data management increasingly outsourced to private providers that may use this information to develop products for sale back to public education systems. While there are obvious benefits associated with standardization and interoperability, including reducing costs for public schools to purchase software and increasing opportunities for data analysis and sharing, it certainly shifts the balance between public education and the commercial provision of educational products and services.

The development of data infrastructure in Australian schools is more advanced than in other countries we are studying. This is largely due to differences in governance structures and the cultures that have emerged around data use in schools. For example, annual census testing in Australia, linked to reward funding for systems and individual principals, has created a stronger “data culture” than is evident in Canada. Laws relating to privacy and transparency can also make a difference. In the U.S., some school boards publish the details of contracts with education companies online, and this makes it easier to see how commercial actors access and use educational data in their dealings with public schools.

The development and adoption of standards is highly technical. The work is often hidden and rarely draws much attention, but this is precisely why it is so powerful. As datafication, standardization and interoperability increasingly facilitate the flow of data across boundaries between schools, school systems and governments, international partnerships are needed to keep tabs on these developments.

The growing push for digital delivery of testing programs and learning management systems in Alberta is a manifestation of this global phenomenon. Comparisons between developments in different contexts enable us to understand the risks and benefits associated with the flow of education data across geographical and organizational boundaries. It will also help organizations such as the Alberta Teachers’ Association to identify strategies for holding to account an increasingly powerful new set of actors in public education—education technology companies.

Reference

Easterling, K. 2014. Extrastatecraft: The power of Infrastructure Space. New York, NY: Verso.

1. The project is being conducted by an international research team, which is led by Professor Bob Lingard at the University of Queensland. Other chief investigators are Associate Professor Kalervo Gulson (University of New South Wales), Dr. Sam Sellar (Manchester Metropolitan University) and Dr. Keita Takayama (University of New England). Partner investigators are Professor Christopher Lubienski (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) and Associate Professor P. Taylor Webb (University of British Columbia). This project is funded by a research grant from the Australian Research Council (DP150102098).April 24, 2017).

Dr. Sam Sellar is a postdoctoral research fellow in the school of education at the University of Queensland in Australia. He has been actively involved in the Alberta Teachers’ Association’s efforts to develop a new approach to public assurance.