$6.4 Million Awarded to Establish National IDEA Technical Assistance Center on Early Childhood Longitudinal Data Systems

The U.S. Department of Education today announced the award of $6,499,473 to SRI International to establish and operate the National IDEA Technical Assistance Center on Early Childhood Longitudinal Data Systems. The project will support states in building and using early childhood longitudinal data systems to more efficiently respond to Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) data requirements. The project also will focus on improving outcomes for children with disabilities through data-based decision making.

"We want to ensure that all our students have a strong academic start," said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. "This grant will help fund technical assistance and support to states to help ensure that states are using quality data to better inform decisions on how to best serve young children with disabilities and help them reach their fullest potential."

Key focus areas for this center include:

• Providing technical assistance to states on developing or enhancing statewide early childhood longitudinal data systems that link child-level data on infants, toddlers, and young children with disabilities (birth through age five) from one data system to child-level data in other early learning data systems; and
• Providing technical assistance to focus on building the state's capacity to report high-quality data to meet IDEA reporting requirements in coordination with other state-level data systems.

This grant is funded by the Office of Special Education Programs.