Virginia’s education and workforce data ecosystem (“the Ecosystem") is a collection of data and analysis systems critical for supporting evidence-based policy decisions, workforce development, and educational outcomes across the Commonwealth. The Ecosystem, comprised of key data entities such as the Virginia Longitudinal Data System (VLDS), the Virginia Workforce Data Trust (VWDT), and the Virginia Office of Education Economics (VOEE), serves as a foundation for addressing the data needs of families, opportunity seekers, employers, educators, state and local agencies, policymakers, and researchers, among other stakeholders. However, despite its strengths, the Ecosystem in its current state faces significant challenges in coordinating governance, ensuring data accessibility, providing valuable insights, tools, and communications, and promoting inter-agency coordination, which lead to inefficiencies and hinder its potential for greater impact.

House Bill 1083 (2024) directed the Secretary of Education to convene a Work Group to review the current capabilities of Virginia’s education and workforce data systems and to develop a comprehensive work plan for their improvement. After months of collaborative meetings, surveys, and interviews, the Work Group has developed a set of strategic recommendations aimed at addressing critical issues in the Ecosystem that, if implemented, can position Virginia as a national leader in leveraging coordinated governance to better consolidate existing resources, reduce bureaucratic barriers to data access, and address some of the Commonwealth’s most pressing data priorities and questions with greater efficiency.

Leaders across the Ecosystem consistently identified several key challenges, including limited coordination and communication between agencies leading to duplication of efforts, the unavailability of timely data to inform decision-making, a lack of clarity on where to go to get questions answered, and an absence of user-friendly tools, like dashboards, that provide actionable data for policymakers, educators, and the public. Additionally, stakeholders expressed concerns about data privacy, security, and the modernization of technology, highlighting the opportunity to coordinate across the various entities that manage and use the Commonwealth’s education and workforce data to address these issues. These challenges underscore the critical need for better coordination to ensure that Virginia’s data systems can effectively serve the needs of all stakeholders to solve the Commonwealth’s most pressing challenges.

Recommendations for the General Assembly

1. Streamline decision-making, reduce redundancies, and ensure greater coordination across education and workforce data systems by establishing the Virginia Education and Workforce Data Governing Board. The Governing Board will be charged with delivering on the state’s vision for education and workforce data, including identifying areas for consolidation, aligning resources, and improving overall system efficiency.

A Virginia Education and Workforce Data Governing Board (“the Governing Board") should be established to oversee the strategic direction, governance, and management of the Ecosystem. This new structure should supersede and replace existing decision-making structures for the Ecosystem’s data systems, ensuring strategic decisions about how the Commonwealth’s data is connected, analyzed, and reported to stakeholders reflect executive-level leadership alignment, as well as bolster inter-agency coordination, data security, accountability, and transparency for the Ecosystem. The Governing Board will also set a prioritized research agenda and direct the creation of data outputs (such as data analyses and interactive dashboards of outcomes data), ensuring the available data in the Ecosystem is strategically leveraged to meet the needs of a wide array of stakeholders, including policymakers, educators, businesses, and the public. With budgetary oversight of all data systems within the Ecosystem, the Governing Board will initially determine how much money is being spent across the Ecosystem and for what functions, and will be empowered to find budgetary efficiencies and identify opportunities to consolidate redundant practices such as the duplication of data collection or analysis.

2. Ensure the Governing Board can deliver on the state’s vision by establishing an Office of Education and Workforce Data overseen by an Executive Director, initially housed in the Administration Secretariat.

The Governing Board should oversee an Office of Education and Workforce Data (“the Office"), housed within a non-contributing entity, responsible for coordinating Virginia’s education and workforce data systems and developing outputs such as tools and dashboards that align with the Governing Board’s vision and meet stakeholders' needs. In its first two years, the Office will focus on high-impact tasks that will immediately improve the efficiency and coordination of Virginia’s data systems. These tasks include cataloging all existing data systems within the Ecosystem, evaluating their operating budgets, and identifying areas for consolidation to reduce redundancy in data collection, analytics, and reporting. The Office will also develop public-facing tools, such as dashboards, to provide stakeholders with timely and actionable data. By addressing these priorities early on, the Office will deliver measurable improvements in operational efficiency, resource allocation, and data accessibility, ensuring Virginia’s data systems are streamlined and effective from the outset.

3. Elevate input from key stakeholders by charging the Governing Board with establishing an advisory committee and other work groups as needed.

The Governing Board should establish an advisory committee comprised of state agency leaders, local government agency leaders, business leaders, members of the public, and other individuals as directed by the Governing Board that provide recommendations on decisions related to data privacy, security, technical aspects of data migration, and the use of emerging technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI). This advisory committee will ensure diverse perspectives are incorporated into decision-making processes, allowing the Governing Board to stay informed on emerging trends, address stakeholder concerns, and implement best practices in data governance and technology.

4. Provide a sustainable funding source to allow the Office of Education and Workforce Data to perform their legislatively required duties by establishing a line item in the state operating budget.

The General Assembly should appropriate adequate resources and funding to support the execution of the charges of the Governing Board and its Office. This appropriation should align with the operating budgets of states with similar governance structures and account for staffing, operations, and production of tools and outputs. As the Office works to find budgetary efficiencies by coordinating across the Ecosystem, the Office will develop recommendations for other ways this Office can provide cost savings to the Commonwealth.

The recommendations outlined in this report can significantly strengthen Virginia’s ability to leverage its existing education and workforce data systems to increase efficiencies, benefitting policymakers, educators, businesses, and citizens alike. By establishing a clear governance framework for shared decision-making, prioritizing and streamlining the best use of existing assets and funding, and modernizing data systems, Virginia can continue to lead the nation in education and workforce development.