State’s debut of new super-data system hurt by bad information

Parents, educators and researchers will have to wait a bit longer before state officials release a series of reports about students and the workforce as part of the debut of a first-of-its-kind database in Nevada.

The new super-data system, which connects information from public schools, higher education and employers, has been years in the making, with a public launch set for Friday. But the three state agencies building the database agreed to a more limited rollout of the Nevada P-20 Workforce Report, or NPWR, after discovering the system produced inaccurate information about average salaries for workers.

As of late Friday, none of the planned six reports appeared on the NPWR website, npwr.nv.gov.

"We want to be sure that everything is not only running as it is supposed to, but that all of the reports are displaying the correct data," said Linda Heiss, senior director of institutional research at the Nevada System of Higher Education.

"This is taking longer than anticipated (but) bottom line, we want it to be right," she added. "We can't take it back once individuals begin using the data."

Her organization, along with the Nevada Department of Education and Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation, have spent months working with a contractor to validate the data and formulas that will populate the public portion of the NPWR site.

Another portion will allow researchers and policymakers to monitor the effectiveness of Nevada's education initiatives with the use of data collected from the moment a student starts preschool to school graduation, acceptance to a university and eventually the first day of work.

While officials expect to release the public reports over the next several weeks, the NPWR site on Friday already hosted information and videos that describe the system, how it works and how student privacy is protected.

"The full site is available, but the established reports are not," said Glenn Meyer, director of information technology at the Nevada Department of Education. "It was not an issue of functionality, but quality control of the information contained in the reports."

NPWR "is a new process involving three agencies and we want to ensure the information is as accurate as possible," he said.

The state secured funding for NPWR three years ago through a $4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education. Officials recently applied for an additional grant to expand the database and use it to develop even more studies.

For now, the first batch of reports that NPWR will produce include average wage broken down by industry and county; most common degree by industry; remedial course enrollment rates by high school; student completion rates at Nevada colleges and universities; average starting salary and employment within each field of study; and the share of students enrolling in higher education within and outside Nevada.

"There isn't any fault to place on anyone," Heiss said of the delayed publication of those reports. "Everyone is working really hard, but we just want to make sure it is accurate above all else."

Contact Neal Morton at nmorton@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0279. Follow @nealtmorton on Twitter.