The Who, What, When, Where, and Why of Wisconsin's ISES

The reauthorized federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), also known as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, requires extensive additional data collection and reporting by both state and local education agencies. As a result, the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) and local school districts need to modify their existing data systems. Beginning in the 2004-05 school year, Wisconsin school districts will participate in an Individual Student Enrollment System (ISES), which will allow educators to (1) better account for students who move or are highly mobile, (2) more readily exchange student records among school districts, and (3) respond more quickly to areas in need of improvement.

ISES will consist of two distinct phases: (1) development of a Wisconsin Student Number (WSN) Locator System and (2) annual submittal of individual student's educational status. In Phase 1, districts in July 2004 will supply the DPI such data as the name, gender, race/ethnicity, and birth date for each student served by the public school district. The DPI will assign each student a number, which will be the student's sole identifier throughout the PK-12 experience.

In Phase 2, school districts in October 2004 will submit to the DPI selected data for each student, including at a minimum entry/exit status (transferred, graduated, or dropped out), primary disability, economically disadvantaged status, and English proficiency level. Because the federal government likely will seek additional student data over time (for example, attendance in 2005), ISES will be flexible enough for expansion.

ISES data collected in October 2004 will be current year (2004-05) enrollment and prior-year (2003-04) entry/exit data. The DPI remains committed to expeditious collection of data, so we will not duplicate enrollment, School Performance Report (SPR), or other state-level data collections. For example, once ISES is in place, dropout and graduation data will no longer need to be collected for SPR.

Whereas ISES is new to Wisconsin, nearly all Midwestern states have adopted this type of system; eventually every state will likely implement a similar system. Wisconsin's system is being developed with student confidentiality as its highest priority. Clearly, this effort will challenge local school district and state education department staff and stretch our limited resources in its first year. School district size, data-collection practices, technology capacity and currency, and myriad other factors will determine each district's approach to ISES data collection.

School district staff can take steps to ease this transition (see "Preparing Your School District for ISES" and "Preparing Your School District for WSN"). With help from the State Superintendent's Educational Data Advisory Committee (SSEDAC), the DPI will continue to refine ISES and the data-collection process. Please review the most current information, or e-mail *dpieseadata@dpi.wi.gov.

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Submit questions, comments, and suggestions about the WSLS or ISES to *dpistats@dpi.wi.gov or call 800-507-5744.

Submit questions regarding the ESEA Report Card Requirements to *dpieseadata@dpi.wi.gov.

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Last updated on 2/28/2008 7:56:20 AM