(Editor’s note: The Broadband Report is a regular feature in WRAL Tech Wire each Monday.)

RALEIGH, N.C. – Pennsylvania currently is the only state to link its K-12 data system and information from all five key early-childhood education, health and social services programs, according to a new report.

The 2013 State of States’ Early Childhood Data Systems, released by the Early Childhood Data Collaborative on Feb. 19, is based on a survey of 50 states and the District of Columbia, assessing the coordination of their early-childhood data systems. The survey was completed by state education, health and social services program staff and focused on states’ capacity to securely link child-level ECE data, collect state-level child screening and assessment data, and the use of coordinated ECE data.

Although federal and state agencies fund an array of early care and education (ECE) services and collect data documenting those services, this new report found that most states could do much more to link this data to guide decision-making for programs serving young children.

Data about program participation, program quality, workforce characteristics, and developmental outcomes are often collected by different state agencies and housed in different databases. This makes it difficult, according to Carlise King, executive director of the Early Childhood Data Collaborative, for most states to get an unduplicated count of children served or information about how program quality relates to workforce characteristics and child outcomes.

“The ability to link early-childhood data is significant because it allows policymakers to understand how children’s collective experiences contribute to their learning and development across ECE programs and over time,” said King.

King added that coordinated longitudinal early-childhood data systems can help program administrators reduce duplicative data collection, ECE professionals’ tailor programs, parents select needed services, and policymakers develop policies to continuously improve ECE programs.

Additional findings from the report include:

• In 49 states and the District of Columbia, child-level data across different ECE programs are not all linked. Only one state – Pennsylvania – can link child-level data across all ECE programs and to the state’s K-12 data system. Most states cannot answer key policy questions about all children served in publicly-funded early care and education programs because ECE child-level data is not linked.

• Thirty states reported securely linking ECE child-level data to states’ K-12 data, compared to 20 states that link ECE child-level data to social services data and 12 states that link ECE child-level data to states’ health data. A number of states are engaged in planning processes to create these linkages between state health (22 states) and social services (18 states) data systems.

• State coordinated ECE data systems are more likely to link data for children participating in state pre-kindergarten and preschool special education than children in Head Start or subsidized child care programs. More states securely link preschool special education data (25 states) or state-prekindergarten data (23 states) than link federal Head Start (9 states) or subsidized child care (12 states) data.

• Thirty-six states collect state-level child development data from ECE programs and 29 states capture kindergarten entry assessment data. Aggregate data on developmental screening and assessment, including kindergarten readiness assessment (collected by 29 states), can be useful at a state level to track, over time, the trends in children’s developmental status and need for early intervention and/or special education services. More information is needed about the proportion of programs participating in these state systems and how this development and assessment information is being used.

• Thirty-two states have designated an ECE data governance entity to guide the development and use of a state coordinated longitudinal ECE data system. Over one-half of states have established an ECE data governance structure to assist with strategic planning, secure data sharing across public agencies, and ensure appropriate, secure use of data. These governance entities are well positioned to coordinate data across the multiple state agencies that administer a patchwork of state and federally funded programs.

The Division of Child Development and Early Education through the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services was contacted by WRAL Tech Wire for comment on this story but did not respond.

View findings for North Carolina on this report by following this link.

This report was produced in partnership with The Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at UC Berkeley, Child Trends, Council of Chief State School Officers, Data Quality Campaign, National Conference of State Legislatures, and National Governors Association Center for Best Practices.

The Early Childhood Data Collaborative received funding for this report from the Alliance for Early Success.