Disconnected and Inaccessible: Advocacy and Policy Development in a Context of Failing Data Infrastructure

• In Event: The Possibilities and Challenges of Data-Sharing to Inform Policy Advocacy and Enactment Across Organizations

Abstract

Background: The province of Ontario, Canada is proud of high academic achievement including high rankings on international assessments (Education Quality and Accountability Office, 2016; O’Grady, Deussing, Scerbina, Fung, & Muhe, 2016), exceptionally high achievement by immigrant students (OECD, 2016), and the highest proportion of residents with postsecondary education (PSE) credentials in the OECD (Statistics Canada, 2017). But alongside successes there remain considerable gaps in achievement in K-12 and post-secondary, disproportionately affecting certain groups of racialized students and students with disabilities (e.g. Finnie, Sweetman, & Usher, 2008).

Purpose: The achievement gaps are common knowledge, yet they persist. The purpose of this paper is to report how data is shared and accessed across the K-12 and PSE systems in Ontario, Canada. Through an environmental scan, this study seeks to uncover existing processes for sharing data, and the challenges associated with those processes.

Methods and data sources: The environmental scan includes key informant interviews and an analysis of the legal framework governing information. Informants came from across Canada and included government officials related to both K-12 and PSE, representatives of postsecondary institutions, representatives from foundations working on education access and opportunity, and government, university, and independent researchers working on education policy and other relevant areas of research.

Findings: Overall, this study found that the research base and structures to communicate data across the K-12 and PSE systems is incomplete, disconnected, and deeply inaccessible to educators and the broader research community.
Despite ongoing calls from the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) for effective data collection to monitor risks of systemic discrimination and relative outcomes of historically disadvantaged groups (OHRC, 2005, am. 2009), the province has taken little action. In PSE, data about group identity is collected for proprietary purposes but not for public reporting. Government officials cite privacy concerns as a bar to demographic data collection; but, when pressed, acknowledge that there is no legal bar. More broadly, Ontario’s data infrastructure fails because it does not produce the crucial longitudinal data needed to understand the impact of educational programs or causes of change. Many informants emphasize the untapped potential of the Ontario Education Number (OEN), which, theoretically, allows depersonalized linkage of longitudinal data about programs and progress for students throughout K-12 and PSE. Unfortunately, while data is collected using the OEN, there are limited linkages. Finally, research access to depersonalized, OEN-linked data is limited and highly discretionary outside the two Ontario education Ministries (K-12 and PSE). Indeed, data is not routinely shared between ministries and arms-length public agencies charged with accountability, and there is no clear standard for research data requests.

Significance: The lack of a functioning provincial data system creates challenges that affect boards, universities and colleges as well as advocacy groups. These results contribute to a broader conversation of how the K-12 and PSE systems developed and remain disconnected on a fundamental level (Kirst & Venezia, 2017). Equity-seeking educational researchers need to work with users to demand a functioning system of data infrastructure as a critical element in supporting disadvantaged students.

Author

• Kelly Gallagher Mackay, Wilfrid Laurier University