U.S. Grants $150M for State Data Systems

The U.S. Education Department on Friday awarded $150 million in grants to help 27 states develop or upgrade longitudinal student data systems to track academic progress. While most of the grants, which range from $2.5 million to $9 million, are focused on data systems for elementary and secondary schools, many of them are aimed at helping to integrate the systems with postsecondary education systems or to allow data from the systems to be shared with college officials.