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FY 2015 Annual Performance Report and FY 2017 Annual Performance Plan—U.S. Department of Education 87

Goal 5. Continuous Improvement of the U.S. Education System: 

Enhance the education system’s ability to continuously improve 

through better and more widespread use of data, research and 

evaluation, evidence, transparency, innovation, and technology. 

Goal Leader: Amy McIntosh

Objective 5.1: Data Systems and Transparency. Facilitate the development of interoperable 

longitudinal data systems for early learning through employment to enable data-driven, 

transparent decision-making by increasing access to timely, reliable, and high-value data. 

Objective Leader: Ross Santy 

Metric 5.1.A: Number of public data sets included in ED Data Inventory and thus linked 

to Data.gov or ED.gov websites 

Metric 5.1.B: Number of states linking K–12 and postsecondary data with workforce 

data 

Metric 5.1.C: Number of states linking K–12 with early childhood data 

Objective 5.2: Privacy. Provide all education stakeholders, from early childhood to adult 

learning, with technical assistance and guidance to help them protect student privacy while 

effectively managing and using student information. Objective Leader: Kathleen Styles 

Metric 5.2.A: Average time to close “cases” (PTAC + FPCO)96

Objective 5.3: Research, Evaluation, and Use of Evidence. Invest in research and evaluation 

that builds evidence for education improvement; communicate findings effectively; and drive the 

use of evidence in decision-making by internal and external stakeholders. Objective Leaders: 

Ruth Neild and Margo Anderson 

Metric 5.3.A: Percentage of select new97 (noncontinuation) competitive grant dollars that 

reward evidence 

Metric 5.3.B: Number of peer-reviewed, full-text resources in the Education Resources 

Information Center (ERIC) 

Metric 5.3.C: Number of reviewed studies in the WWC database98

Objective 5.4: Technology and Innovation. Accelerate the development and broad adoption 

of new, effective programs, processes, and strategies, including education technology. 

Objective Leader: Joseph South

 

96 Privacy Technical Assistance Center (PTAC) and Family Policy Compliance Office (FPCO). 

97 “New competitive grant dollars that reward evidence” includes all dollars awarded based on the existence of at least “evidence of 

promise” in support of a project, per the framework in the Education Department General Administrative Regulations (34 CFR Part 

75). Consideration of such evidence appears through: eligibility threshold (e.g., in the i3); absolute priority; competitive priority 

(earning at least one point for it); or selection criteria (earning at least one point for it). The percentage is calculated compared to the 

total new grant dollars awarded, excluding awards made by the IES, the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, 

and technical assistance centers, with some exceptions. 

98 Metric is being removed at the end of the FY 2015 reporting period. Please refer to appendix B for details pertaining to the 

removal and addition of metrics. 
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Metric 5.4.A: Percentage of schools in the country that have actual Internet bandwidth 

speeds of at least 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) 

Goal 5 Discretionary Resources

$0 $500 $1,000 $1,500 $2,000 $2,500

FY 2015

FY 2016

FY 2017

$814

$861

$1,024

(Dollars in millions)

Major Discretionary Programs and Activities99 Supporting Goal 5 Performance Metrics 

[Dollars in Millions]

POC Account Obj. Program

FY 2015 

Appropriation

FY 2016 

Appropriation

FY 2017 

President’s 

Budget

IES IES 5.3 National assessment 129 149 149

IES IES 5.3 Regional educational laboratories 54 54 54

IES IES 5.3 Research in special education 54 54 54

IES IES 5.3 Research, development, and dissemination 180 195 209

IES IES 5.1, 5.2 Statewide longitudinal data systems 35 35 81

IES IES 5.3 Statistics 103 112 125

OII I&I 5.3 Education innovation and research 120 120 180

Subtotal 675 719 853

Other Discretionary Programs/Activities 139 142 171

TOTAL, GOAL 5 814 861 1,024

POC = Principal Office Component 

NOTES: Many programs may have sub-activities that relate to other goals. Detail may not add to total due to rounding. 

Public Benefit

Education stakeholders, ranging from students and parents, to teachers and principals, to 

superintendents and the Secretary, need access to timely, appropriate, relevant, and actionable 

information. Information sources, which can range from datasets to rigorous evaluations and 

research studies, must be accessible through reliable technology and must reach needed 

 

99 All the programs listed are discretionary programs, as distinct from mandatory programs. These include both competitive and 

noncompetitive programs.
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audiences through dissemination, while applying appropriate controls to protect student privacy. 

The Department must continue to invest in its information resources so that internal and 

external stakeholders can use this information to make evidence-based decisions. 

States continue to develop systems that will collect, manage, and appropriately report the valid, 

reliable data that are essential to achieving improvements across education, but there is much 

more work to do. The Department continues ongoing efforts to develop effective SLDS, design 

voluntary Common Education Data Standards (CEDS) to increase interoperability, and develop 

the capacity of institutions and staff to utilize data to improve teaching and learning outcomes. It 

is not enough to support only the development of the systems and structures that will provide 

education agencies across the nation with the data necessary to generate accurate pictures of 

student performance and other critical elements, from early learning programs through 

postsecondary institutions and the workforce. The Department must continue to lead the 

national discussion of how these systems are best and most appropriately used to support 

students, improve instruction, address inequities, develop future teachers, and inform practice; 

all while ensuring the privacy of the nation’s students is safely protected. 

Additionally, the Department must serve as a model for how data are disseminated. Information 

that SEAs and LEAs report to the Department should be made accessible, where possible, to 

inform the public and help with local decision-making, but these data must be shared in ways 

that protect student privacy and that are in compliance with federal and state privacy laws. The 

collection, storage, maintenance, and use of data must be responsible and must appropriately 

protect student privacy. Stewards and users of data must remember that these data describe 

real people and ensure that systems protect the rights of those people. The Department will 

help practitioners in the field ensure they are properly protecting privacy and communicating 

with parents and students about the proper use and management of student data. 

The Department continues to prioritize the use of “evidence-based” practices through its 

competitive programs while supporting the creation of new evidence through rigorous project 

evaluations. This approach helps ensure that scarce dollars have their intended impact and also 

empowers states and districts to become more dynamic learning organizations, especially in 

areas with little existing rigorous evidence. Additionally, the Department continues to provide 

tools to stakeholders that help them understand what types of which strategies and 

interventions are effective for various “problems of practice.”

Better use of information, both for policy-makers, but also educators, depends on access to 

reliable technology. The Department’s vision for 21st-century learning requires that schools 

have a 21st-century technology infrastructure anchored around high-speed Internet to allow for 

innovation and personalization in the classroom. This vision is supported by the remarkable 

progress we have made towards the President’s ConnectED initiative goal to connect 

99 percent of students in the nation’s schools to high-speed broadband by 2018. States, 

districts, and schools must have such infrastructure to incorporate cutting-edge methods for 

strengthening curriculum quality and delivery to meet more rigorous college- and career-ready 

standards; improving student access and engagement; developing comprehensive, formative, 

and summative assessment systems; and enhancing data management systems. 
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Goal 5: Details

Continuous Improvement 

of the U.S. Education 

System

Indicators of Success

Baseline

Actuals

Current 

Year 

Target

Current 

Year 

Results

Actual-to-Target

2015 Out-Year Targets Trend Line

(Actuals)

2013 2014 2015 2015

Missed Exceeded

2016 2017

5.1.A. Number of public 

data sets included in ED 

Data Inventory and thus 

linked to Data.gov or 

ED.gov websites

FY: 2013

55 55 66 79 79 MET

79 79

0

20

40

60

80

100

5.1.A

94 104

0

20

40

60

80

100

2013 2014 2015

5.1.B. Number of states 

linking K–12 and 

postsecondary data with 

workforce data

FY: 2013

12 12 20 24 22 MET

22

24

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

5.1.B

25 25

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

2013 2014 2015

5.1.C. Number of states 

linking K–12 with early 

childhood data

FY: 2013

19 19 26 32 27 MET

27

32

20

22

24

26

28

30

32

34

5.1.C

29 32

0

10

20

30

40

2013 2014 2015
PERFORMANCE PLAN SUMMARY

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Continuous Improvement 

of the U.S. Education 

System

Indicators of Success

Baseline

Actuals

Current 

Year 

Target

Current 

Year 

Results

Actual-to-Target

2015 Out-Year Targets Trend Line

(Actuals)

2013 2014 2015 2015

Missed Exceeded

2016 2017

5.2.A. Average time to close 

“cases” (PTAC + FPCO)

FY: 2013 

10 days 10 9 4.9 8 days MET

8.0

4.9

0

2

4

6

8

10

5.2.A

7.2100 6.48101

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

2013 2014 2015

5.3.A. Percentage of select 

new (noncontinuation) 

competitive grant dollars 

that reward evidence102

FY: 2012

6.5% 9.35% 15.9% 29.4% 11.0% MET

11.0

%

29.4

%

0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

5.3.A

18%103 20%

0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

2013 2014 2015

New APG Metric: Number 

of completed project 

evaluations from grantees 

from select discretionary 

grant programs in a given 

fiscal year that meet What 

Works Clearinghouse 

(WWC) Evidence 

Standards104

FY: 2015

2

NA NA 2 NA NA 10 20

 

100 Target is being updated to reflect the goal of a 10% reduction from the prior year. 

101 Target is being updated to reflect the goal of a 10% reduction from the prior year. 

102 Metric is aligned to an APG. 

103 The out-year performance targets are increased from what was reported in the FY 2014 Annual Performance Report and FY 2016 Annual Performance Plan. 

104 Metric is aligned to an APG. 
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Continuous Improvement 

of the U.S. Education 

System

Indicators of Success

Baseline

Actuals

Current 

Year 

Target

Current 

Year 

Results

Actual-to-Target

2015 Out-Year Targets Trend Line

(Actuals)

2013 2014 2015 2015

Missed Exceeded

2016 2017

5.3.B. Number of peerreviewed, full-text resources 

in the Education Resources 

Information Center (ERIC)

FY: 2013

23,512 23,512 27,292 36,197 31,192 MET 31,1

92

36,1

97

25,000

27,000

29,000

31,000

33,000

35,000

37,000

5.3.B

35,692 40,892

0

10,000

20,000

30,000

40,000

2013 2014 2015

5.3.C. Number of reviewed 

studies in the What Works 

Clearinghouse (WWC) 

database105

FY: 2013

9,535 9,535 10,310 10,889 10,235 MET

10,2

35

10,8

89

8,500

8,800

9,100

9,400

9,700

10,000

10,300

10,600

10,900

11,200

5.3.C

NA NA

8,500

9,000

9,500

10,000

10,500

11,000

2013 2014 2015

New Metric: Number of 

visits to the What Works 

Clearinghouse (WWC) 

website

FY: 2015

1,822,000 NA NA 1,822,000 NA NA 1,967,760 2,164,536

5.4.A. Percentage of 

schools in the country that 

have actual Internet 

bandwidth speeds of at least 

100 Mbps

FY: 2013

20% 20% 41% 55% 50% MET

50.0

%

55.0

%

40.0%

45.0%

50.0%

55.0%

60.0%

5.4.A

70% 80%

0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

2013 2014 2015

NA = Not applicable. 

 

105 Metric being removed at the end of the FY 2015 reporting period and being replaced with the metric identified as “New Metric” directly below it. If there is no corresponding “New 

Metric” identified, new metric TBD. Please refer to appendix B for details pertaining to the removal and addition of metrics. The proposed FY 2016 and 2017 targets for the metric being 

removed were 10,585 and 10,935, respectively. 
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TBD = To be determined. 

Academic Year (AY) is a collegiate year spanning August–May; School Year (SY) spans August–July and is aligned with a P–12 school year; Fiscal Year (FY) corresponds to a federal 

fiscal year; Calendar Year (CY) spans January–December. 

Data Sources and Frequency of Collection:

5.1.A. Data Strategy Team Data Inventory and the public ED Data Inventory at http://datainventory.ed.gov; quarterly 

5.1.B. State Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS) grant monitoring (monthly updates from states, annual performance reports, final performance reports, and site visits); quarterly 

5.1.C. SLDS grant monitoring (monthly updates from states, annual performance reports, final performance reports, and site visits); quarterly 

5.2.A. Case Tracking System (CTS); quarterly 

5.3.A. Forecast Report issued by the Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO) and final Funding Reports from relevant programs; annually 

5.3.B. Education Resources Information Center (ERIC); quarterly 

5.3.C. What Works Clearinghouse (WWC); quarterly 

5.4.A. Education Superhighway (for baseline), Consortium for School Networking (CoSN)/AASA E-rate Infrastructure Survey (for FY 2014 actual data); annually 

Note on performance metrics and targets: These metrics were established as a part of the FY 2014–18 Strategic Plan. Metrics may be updated or revised to 

reflect awareness of more accurate data or clarifications. Such updates or revisions are identified in footnotes. 
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Analysis and Next Steps by Objective

Objective 5.1: Data Systems and Transparency 

Explanation and Analysis of Progress: 

The Department continues to focus upon providing technical assistance to the field to support 

the development and use of longitudinal data systems that serve the education needs of the 

states. In recent years a core focus for this work has been upon implementing and sustaining 

connections that span the complete student lifecycle. For example, the SLDS grant program

works with a State Support Team (SST) of experienced government and industry experts in the 

area of data systems development, connection and maintenance. The technical assistance 

provided by the SST is available to all states, not only to active grantees of the SLDS grant 

program. This level of support has enabled better conversations across states, sharing of both 

technical and business process best practices, and helped bring to life the number of new K-12 

and postsecondary to workforce connections and P–12 to early childhood data connections that 

surpassed our targets for FY 2015 on both metrics. 

Collaboration is key to the success of this objective. SLDS staff work frequently with other 

Department programs, including the ELC, as well as coordinating with Department of Labor’s 

Workforce Data Quality Information program. The Department continues to collaborate with 

technical experts, standards organizations and key stakeholders in the maintenance, 

enhancement and roll-out of CEDS. In FY 2015, in addition to successfully completing a new 

grant round and awarding 16 new SLDS grants to support collaborative data uses, a new 

contract was awarded to support CEDS enhancements, tools and uses over the next two years. 

States, postsecondary institutions and independent research groups continue to use the online 

CEDS tools to map their data systems, data uses and data models to CEDS. 

The Department continues to model the transparency we are working to develop in the field by 

updating and expanding the ED Data Inventory. While work to improve the functionality and 

connections of the ED Data Inventory system have stalled due to budgetary limitations, the work 

to improve and enhance the Inventory’s content continues to move forward. Collections and 

reports from Department programs within seven different Principal Office Components are now 

represented in the Inventory. This resulted in 74 distinct publicly available datasets across the 

Department being connected to an Inventory entry. The Inventory continues to provide source 

information to data.gov on a regular basis. 

Challenges and Next Steps: 

As with previous years, state support for longitudinal data system development continues to be 

the largest dependency and area of risk for progress in this area. Several states have 

experienced increased political pressures over the past year to reduce collection and 

management of longitudinal student data. The most effective strategies towards building support 

within states for continuing to support longitudinal data system initiatives is to enable a strong 

set of best practice uses for the data that deliver value to stakeholders at multiple levels. The 

16 new awards made in the SLDS FY 2015 grant competition are all focused upon data use. A 

key challenge that is being addressed right now is to develop a consistently applied and agreed 

upon metric (or set of metrics) for measuring and documenting good data use. The SLDS team 

has been driving work forward in this area as monitoring practices and protocols are set up for 

FY 2015 grantees. 
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Formalizing new phases for CEDS and the ED Data Inventory work will be very important in the 

coming months. As FY 2015 came to a close a new vehicle was put in place to support the 

development and use of CEDS for the next two years. As we start FY 2016, work is now getting 

back up to speed to engage the field in the continued development of the standards, and to 

support use of the online tools that enable agencies and interested individuals to interact with 

CEDS. Having the vehicle in place for two years will be helpful, as gaps in the work seen during 

both FY 2014 and FY 2015 should not occur. The ED Data Inventory is also at a critical juncture 

in its development. While the content of the inventory continues to be supported and enhanced, 

the technical work that was getting started at the beginning of FY 2015 to better integrate the 

Inventory and the collection clearance process systems at the Department had to be put on 

hold. Although, this should not cause problems for meeting the established goals connecting 

public data sets with entries within the Inventory in FY 2016, if the funding and integration 

issues are not resolved further progress into FY 2017 and FY 2018 may be threatened. 

In FY 2016, the Department is launching the InformED initiative. InformED is the Department’s 

groundbreaking effort to transform how the Department makes information available—and 

actionable—for internal users and for the public, building on lessons learned from the new 

College Scorecard. The InformED initiative would replicate across the education spectrum, from 

early childhood to adult education, what the Scorecard accomplished for higher education. Each 

of these Scorecard-like sites or “information hubs” would pull together the Department’s diverse 

array of information on a particular topic, make it accessible with intuitive tools for decisionmaking, and allow open data access to unlock answers to pressing education questions and 

needs. As with the College Scorecard, the release of these data will enable external developers 

to create innovative new tools to further serve students. The Department is working to identify 

several key themes around which to center information and will develop new iterations of the 

College Scorecard. InformED will empower decision-makers by providing the full set of 

information, both data and studies that currently live in disparate locations, into one location with 

analysis and reporting tools and open data access to address relevant education questions. To 

support open access to education data and centralized dissemination of other evidence, the 

Department must invest in its underlying data infrastructure for managing the collection, quality, 

release, and analysis of data. 

The Department is also continuing to improve its own internal data management practices 

through the maturation of the DST. What started as primarily a communication tool has evolved 

to document the key hurdles that prevent better data practices within the Department and to 

make recommendations to address them. Leadership of the DST is currently reviewing a drafted 

Directive on Departmental Data Management Practices. The Directive, if implemented, would 

formally unite existing data strategy and data governance practices while also outlining the roles 

and responsibilities for offices that steward key data on behalf of the Department. This work is 

continuing the evolution of DST from a volunteer, collaborative organization to a true 

governance body that can effect change and implement better practice across the Department. 

Objective 5.2: Privacy 

Explanation and Analysis of Progress: 

Educational institutions rely on student data to improve decision-making, to personalize 

learning, and to target additional support to at-risk students, and the Department itself relies on 

student data for key administration initiatives. Increases in the collection and use of student 

data, however, have fueled public concern about student privacy, and important gains are at risk 

due to public concern. Throughout FY 2015, student privacy was an extremely hot topic and as 

a result the Department had to begin, to some degree, pulling away from our long term 
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improvement plans to respond to immediate Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act 

(FERPA) and privacy issues providing substantial, recurring technical assistance to the Hill on 

dozens of proposed bills dealing with student privacy. In addition, the Department responded to 

public and congressional criticism over the privacy of students’ medical treatment records in the 

wake of a recent sexual assault case by issuing a draft Dear Colleague letter on the protection 

of student privacy in campus medical records. The Department was publicly commended for 

publishing the letter in draft format, to obtain public input before finalizing it in FY 2016. 

While adjusting to these changing demands, there has been consistent, steady improvement in 

office metrics specific to privacy since we began tracking these numbers about two years ago. 

Our strategy has been to rely when appropriate on contractor resources, both within the office 

and from the contractors that staff the PTAC. These efforts in addressing the high degree of 

public interest in student privacy included the implementation of a new more user-friendly 

website, and the release of our Model Terms of Service guidance and teacher training video. 

Another strategy that continues to pay off is increased coordination with other Department 

offices engaged in privacy technical assistance as the Department expanded PTAC’s work to 

include early childhood programs, particularly through the creation of new online resource page 

that curates a vast array of technical assistance resources on the privacy and security of early 

childhood (EC) data from across the Department’s disparate EC technical assistance centers. 

Through PTAC and the Department’s Office of the Chief Privacy Officer (OCPO), the 

Department conducted a number of targeted technical assistance activities on early childhood 

issues, including a site visits, webinars, and workshops and provided extensive internal 

technical assistance on privacy issues relating to the Preschool Development Grants program. 

As a result of this focus on efficiencies and resource utilization, using metrics to improve 

performance and relying on a case tracking system that manages workload and content for both 

our contractor and federal staff, the average time to respond to cases was under 5 days, 

meeting the Department’s FY 2015 performance target of by having an average turnaround time 

of less than 8 days. 

Challenges and Next Steps: 

As we move forward into FY 2016, the Department again anticipates a significant amount of 

activity in the field on student privacy issues, from new state statutes, to policy statements, 

continued industry pledges and coordination with other enforcement agencies. The challenge 

for this area is to be proactive, when limited resources mandate reactivity. We are 

fundamentally realigning privacy processes and policy at the Department, while continuing to 

run a compliance and technical assistance program. It is challenging to continue to run basic 

operations, while redesigning processes and building for the future. 

While we continued to make considerable strides in FY 2015, we still face an inherent challenge 

regarding inquiries seeking guidance on issues for which the Department has no answer. For 

example, video recording is increasingly being utilized in the educational arena (e.g., for 

surveillance, or remote classroom observation), and application of the regulatory framework to 

these situations is complicated. The Department, specifically the OCPO, will continue to use the 

biweekly meetings with the Department’s Office of the General Counsel (OGC) and OPEPD to 

examine those issues that may require regulatory or statutory change to provide answers. Now 

having senior support for increased resources, there is the hope that even greater strides will be 

realized moving forward into FY 2016 with the addition of these resources and as part of a 

contract recompetition, to transform and restructure PTAC from an external, contractor-run TA 

center, to an integral part of the OCPO. The new contract, awarded in September 2015 will 

improve the Department’s privacy technical assistance by leveraging and integrating the 
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expertise and support of PTAC’s contractor subject-matter experts with the legal and policy 

expertise of the Department’s federal staff. 

Objective 5.3: Research, Evaluation, and Use of Evidence 

Explanation and Analysis of Progress: 

Systemic improvement requires research and evaluation so that decision makers at the 

national, state, and local levels have reliable evidence to inform their actions. While the 

Department’s research programs are its primary driver for learning what works, the Department 

also seeks to build evidence by incorporating grantee-led evaluations into other programs. 

Requiring that more discretionary grants build on and generate evidence of effectiveness will 

increase the likelihood that scarce program dollars have a positive impact on student outcomes. 

A list of evaluations completed in FY 2015, as well as a summary of other relevant upcoming 

evaluations, can be found in appendix E. 

The Department’s Evidence Planning Group (EPG) continues to identify opportunities for 

discretionary grant programs to use evidence-related priorities or selection criteria in 

competitions. In FY 2015, a total of eight competitions in OII, OESE, and OPE encouraged 

evidence-based projects through eligibility requirements, competitive preference priorities, and 

selection criteria. In addition, nine competitions in OII, OESE, and OPE asked that applicants 

design evaluations of their proposed projects that will produce evidence. The Department 

surpassed the FY 2015 performance target for programs rewarding evidence in grant 

competitions. In addition, the EPG has met with each of the Department’s grant-making offices 

to discuss appropriate uses of evidence in FY 2016 competitions. The Department projects that 

over 10 competitions will reward evidence in their FY 2016 competitions. 

The metric above tracks the Department’s progress in incentivizing applicants to build on 

evidence of “what works” and to generate new evidence in the course of their grants. Two other 

metrics—one related to the WWC and one to ERIC—track the Department’s progress in 

reviewing studies of education effectiveness against rigorous standards and in making highquality education research widely available and easily accessible. The Department believes that 

progress in these metrics will contribute to the information flow that is essential to promoting 

promising areas of education research and development. 

The WWC reviews and summarizes studies of the effectiveness of education interventions. 

During FY 2015, the WWC surpassed the Department’s target by reviewing more than 

600 studies. Reviews of studies submitted by applicants to Department grant competitions 

contributed to the larger-than-anticipated number of studies reviewed. In addition to its regular 

reviews of IES-funded research studies, in FY 2015 the WWC also began to review studies 

produced by the i3 program’s first cohort of grantees. These grantees, originally funded in 2010, 

began to share their results of the independent evaluations of their projects this past year. The 

WWC also expanded its capacity to review higher volumes of studies by offering additional 

reviewer training and awarding a new contract for grant-related study reviews. 

Likewise, in FY 2015, ERIC continued to prioritize acquisition of peer-reviewed, full-text 

education research and secured many new agreements with content providers to enable ERIC 

to acquire the full text of peer-reviewed research articles supported with FY 2012 or later 

research funding from IES. This work contributed to surpassing the FY 2015 annual 

performance target by more than 5,000 full-text, peer-reviewed resources. ERIC also has 

incorporated a search function that allows users to identify studies in the ERIC database that 

were reviewed by the WWC and that met standards. In this way, the greater integration of the 
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Department’s WWC and ERIC investments contributes to the “virtuous cycle” of using and 

producing research evidence. 

Challenges and Next Steps: 

The process to collect data and track progress against the goal is iterative, and properly using 

evidence to award competitive grants entails a shift in culture and capacity building across the 

Department. Building evidence into competitions is also resource-intensive in terms of program 

staff capacity, grantee capacity, availability of sufficient numbers of WWC-certified reviewers, 

and the review process. Grantees vary in their comfort with and understanding of evaluation and 

use of evidence, yet the Department has limited resources to support grantees in conducting 

rigorous evaluations that would produce evidence of effectiveness. Finally, targets for this 

objective are based on reasonable projections about which competitive grant programs may 

make new awards in this fiscal year, but the actual dollar amount awarded will depend on final 

appropriation amounts and other funding decisions and trade-offs, so performance targets may 

not increase in a linear fashion each year. 

The Department’s leadership will continue explaining to internal stakeholders how the new 

evidence framework in Education Department General Administrative Regulations (EDGAR) 

can be used in upcoming discretionary grant competitions to reward evidence. For example: 

 EPG is meeting with program offices throughout the Department to identify ways to 

incorporate evidence into discretionary grant competitions. 

 EPG is also exploring ways to support program offices that choose to incorporate 

evidence and build capacity departmentwide. For example, EPG worked to establish a 

departmentwide contract that would provide for technical assistance to grantees on their 

evaluations, particularly impact evaluations that are intended to produce studies that 

meet WWC standards. This contract vehicle is now operational for programs planning 

FY 2016 competitions. Additionally, IES has collaborated with program offices to recruit 

peer reviewers familiar with the WWC standards, which will increase scrutiny of 

applicants’ proposed plans for rigorous evaluations. Finally, OII and IES are providing 

training to Department staff on logic models and other elements of the evidence 

framework to better inform our work at the Department and to provide better assistance 

to our grantees. 

 IES continues to use its various resources intentionally to support program design and 

evaluation. For example, in FY 2015, IES managed the development of a guide for 

planning and conducting strong quasi-experiments and offered a webinar on the topic. 

Regional Educational Laboratory Southeast will offer a five-part webinar series FY 2016 

on designing strong studies of the impact of professional development. The series is 

geared toward applicants to the Department’s discretionary grant programs that require 

evidence. 

To increase the number of individuals who are certified WWC reviewers, the WWC has been 

developing an on-demand online reviewer certification course. Previously, all training was held 

in-person and offered a few times per year. Demand is high for this credential, and the WWC 

has not been able to train all interested individuals. This new approach will allow anyone to take 

the training online and complete a multiple-choice exam on WWC standards. This system will 

allow many more individuals to receive training, at a considerably reduced per-person cost. 
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FY 2015 Annual Performance Report and FY 2017 Annual Performance Plan—U.S. Department of Education 99

Objective 5.4: Technology and Innovation 

Explanation and Analysis of Progress: 

The Department, in consultation with OMB, has determined that performance toward this 

objective is making noteworthy progress. The Department made many successes during 

FY 2015, including a call to the country’s 16,000 superintendents who lead district, charter, and 

private schools to join the Department in taking the Future Ready District Pledge. By taking this 

pledge, superintendents commit to develop, implement, and share technology plans with other 

districts so they can learn from successes and challenges along the way. The Future Ready 

District Pledge offers a roadmap to achieve successful personalized digital learning for every 

student and affirms a commitment by districts to move as quickly as possible toward the shared 

vision of preparing students for success in college, careers, and citizenship. 

To support the work of the superintendents, the Department collected a series of best practices 

for connecting schools, providing devices, and preparing teachers to use technology effectively. 

These practices were published in guides released at the “ConnectED to the Future” 

superintendent summit: Future Ready Schools: Empowering Educators through Professional 

Learning and Future Ready Schools: Building Technology Infrastructure for Learning. The 

Department also issued a Dear Colleague letter to state and local superintendents to clarify that 

technology and digital learning can be an allowable use of more than $27 billion in federal funds 

under the ESEA and IDEA. Moreover, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) 

modernized School and Libraries (E-rate) program, raising the E-rate cap an additional $1.5 

billion per year and reprioritizing internal connectivity. With that added funding, E-rate will now 

provide up to $3.9 billion per year to schools and libraries for both connectivity to and bandwidth 

within these institutions. 

In April 2015, former Secretary Duncan announced the release of the Ed Tech Developer’s 

Guide: A Primer for Developers, Startups and Entrepreneurs—the first guidance from the 

Department specifically for developers of educational software. This guide addresses key 

questions about the education ecosystem and highlights critical needs and opportunities to 

develop digital tools and apps for learning that will help close equity gaps in our schools. Written 

with input from knowledgeable educators, developers, and researchers who were willing to 

share what they have learned, the guide is designed to help entrepreneurs apply technology in 

smart ways to solve persistent problems in education. The release was followed by a national 

Ed Tech Developers Tour, spawning more than twenty events around the country to promote 

the guide and highlight administration priorities regarding the creation and use of educational 

technology in schools. This guide is now the most downloaded publication from the 

Department’s Office of Educational Technology. 

In September 2015, the Department announced the hiring of the first ever open education 

adviser to lead a national effort to expand schools’ access to high-quality, openly licensed 

learning resources. In support of the President’s ConnectED goal for high-quality, low-cost 

digital learning resources, the open education advisor will focus on helping both P–12 and 

higher education connect with teaching, learning and research resources in the public domain 

that are freely available to anyone over the web. With this position filled, the Department is able 

to work with tool providers and developers, district and state leaders, and educators to expand 

the use of openly licensed educational resources at scale in districts and states. Open 

educational resources are an important element of an infrastructure for learning and ranges 

from podcasts to digital libraries to textbooks and games. 
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FY 2015 Annual Performance Report and FY 2017 Annual Performance Plan—U.S. Department of Education 100 

Also in September, the Department awarded a contract to develop approaches for evaluating 

educational apps to help schools and parents make evidence-based decisions when choosing 

which apps to use with their students. This project will establish a standard for low-cost, quick 

turnaround evaluations of apps, and field test rapid-cycle evaluations to understand how to 

improve outcomes of ESEA and now ESSA programs. In addition to generating evidence on 

specific apps, the project will help develop protocol tools for conducting rapid cycle evaluations 

of apps that practitioners, developers, and researchers can use beyond the scope of this 

evaluation. 

Challenges and Next Steps: 

In November 2015, Education Superhighway, a nonprofit dedicated to reaching the President’s 

connectivity goal, released data based on application data from the FCC’s E-rate program. It 

includes data from 6,781 public school districts, representing over 25 million students in 

approximately 49,000 schools. It estimates that 59 percent of schools have reached the 

President’s connectivity goal this year. This estimate falls within 4 percentage points of that 

reported by the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) survey. It further points out that 

future roadblocks to progress include access to needed fiber, especially in rural areas; 

affordability of broadband, especially in smaller districts that are not buying large quantities; and 

fully utilizing E-rate funds, since districts have to provide a percentage match to every E-rate 

dollar they receive. Each of these barriers could slow the rapid deployment of broadband to 

schools in coming years, since to varying degrees they fall outside the direct control of schools. 

Several challenges remain in meeting the goals of this objective, including the need to educate 

the public about privacy and data security (leading to setbacks in the ability to use data to create 

personalized learning systems), difficulty measuring effectiveness without a robust evaluation 

program, and difficulty showing impact without data collection. 

Selected Strategies to Achieve Goal 5

Several themes run across Goal 5 implementation strategies. Collaboration will be a key 

strategy needed to implement all objectives, including collaboration within the Department, 

collaboration within government, and collaboration with the education community as a whole. 

Sufficient resources are also key to all objectives in Goal 5, both federal resources and (in the 

case of the SLDS program) state resources as well. Privacy is both a stand-alone objective and 

a theme in other objectives. The Department must address valid privacy concerns and dispel 

privacy myths. 

Another theme for success in Goal 5 is developing sustainable, scalable solutions for using data 

and evidence in decision-making, which will require the Department to be both efficient and 

effective. Building off Department resources, the Department is working to identify ways to make 

its data more accessible and actionable for the public. The recent release of the College 

Scorecard has shown the power of both user-friendly data tools and improved data access for 

researchers and developers through Application Program Interfaces. Department staff will 

leverage existing resources to improve the way that key datasets are located, accessed, and 

made usable. Another vital information resource is the WWC, helping identify the quality of 

various studies. Carefully reviewing studies against WWC standards is painstaking work and 

challenging to carry out at scale and in a short time frame. The Department is taking deliberate 

steps to increase the number of reviewers who are certified to carry out WWC reviews and to 

procure contracts that allow the Department to act nimbly to obtain these reviews.