2025 Reports

Mapping Public Open Access K-12 State Education Indicator Data Across 7 States and Washington D.C. Using the FAIR Data Principles

Bowers, Alex J.; Choi, Yeonsoo; Huan, Yingqi; Huang, Yanxing; Jiang, Jingjing; Cibrian Lopez, Ghipsel; Murdoch, Alyssa; Pu, Kecen; Sill, Maeghan; Williams, Jonathan; Wu, Yue Summer; Xu, Guoliang; Saldaña, Christopher; Halverson, Richard

The purpose of this report is to map the landscape of thousands of publicly accessible PK-12 school datasets from seven U.S. states and Washington, D.C. to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) framework of 16 indicators for schools and districts, including California, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, and Texas. Consistent with NASEM (2019, 2020), we extend the focus on outcome data (such as test scores and graduation rates) to include a wide range of opportunity and resource data. Despite longstanding calls and mandates to leverage public education data for informed decision-making, data reuse remains limited due in part to poor adherence to the Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability (FAIR) data management principles. To address this challenge, we systematically identified and qualitatively coded public education datasets across the eight jurisdictions. Using a standardized data ingestion protocol grounded in the FAIR principles and a coding scheme based on the NASEM framework, we identified 3,822 datasets and created a metadata catalog for each locale. The report includes the full metadata catalogs, Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) flow diagrams visualizing data sources, network visualizations of data-indicator relationships, and data ingestion protocols and coding schemes. Additionally, we present an interrater reliability analysis of the NASEM indicator coding within and across the states, and a link rot analysis to assess the stability of public data over time. This report provides both a replicable methodological framework and a practical resource for researchers, policymakers, and educators seeking to navigate public education data for decision-making focused on opportunities and achievement for all students.