3 Reasons Why Districts Should Prioritize Accurate Data This Year

Bad data makes for bad decisions. More specifically, poor-quality data means leaders act without the right information and may inadvertently lead their communities down the wrong path.

Today’s environment for educators makes this challenge even harder. As the Department of Education continues to cut back on its workforce and initiatives, and the current administration radically changes K–12 education funding parameters, districts must equip themselves with essential tools to navigate these turbulent storms. Chief among them: accurate data.   

Data integrity concerns are particularly painful in K–12 education. From over-reported numbers of school shootings to dubious trends in school desegregation orders to concerns about grade inflation and reliability, districts may face incorrect numbers in many areas. These issues can cause issues with funding, student services, and much more, all of which ultimately affect students’ success in the classroom. 

In this article, we break down three key reasons why accurate data should be every district’s top priority in the 2025-2026 school year.

#1: Maximize funding

Top of mind for nearly every district leader in the country is the future of their funding sources. But even in a world where education funding remains the same, inaccurate data still poses risks to a district’s monetary resources in two ways.

Misallocated funds

First, inaccurate data may result in a district failing to receive federal or state dollars that should be allocated to its schools.

Take one example from the not-so-distant past. In 2018, California implemented a new statewide data system for students who fall under specific classifications. Its purpose was to simplify how the state calculates funding allocations for thousands of school districts.

However, upon its rollout, leaders discovered over 10,000 data and calculation errors, including “wrong enrollment numbers, duplicate student information, and missing information about accommodations for students with disabilities.” As a result, many districts faced the possibility of losing funds they actually qualified for (and certainly needed) to support their students. 

This is just one of many situations in which data errors can short-change districts, literally. No matter which funding model a district uses, accurate data is essential to ensure it receives maximum monetary resources from all its funding sources. 

Underutilized funds

Second, even with correctly allocated funding in place, data quality issues can lead to those dollars being underutilized across schools. And no district administrator wants to discover that their organization is not maximizing its fiscal resources.

This challenge goes beyond unfilled seats for an after-school service or unused student licenses for learning software (though addressing these kinds of gaps is important). Accurate data is also critical for districts to understand which of their many investments tangibly and quantifiably drive student success, and which ones are a waste of already limited dollars. 

There are many kinds of data available for educators to assess which programs, digital tools, trainings, and other investments are driving student achievement. But actually, triangulating that impact in quantifiable ways is particularly challenging for districts. 

In the corporate world, this “return on investment” (ROI) is simple to calculate as a profit-to-cost ratio. In contrast, “educational ROI” (eROI) is more complex to calculate. With every investment, districts weigh not only their bottom line but also student outcomes in the classroom, student and staff wellbeing, and many other goals often found in their strategic plans. 

However, once eROI is well understood for a particular investment, a district leader can make a more sound decision—based on real data, not “gut checks” or educated guesses—about where to spend their dollars most impactfully. 

But first, this potential requires clean, accurate data.

#2: Minimize time and effort

An educator’s most precious resource is time. Unfortunately, even today, many districts sink hours (and dollars) into manual efforts to resolve data accuracy or cleanliness issues. These efforts include:

• Manually correcting incorrect data entered into the student information system;
• Revising reports to ensure aggregate student data accurately reflects trends across buildings (especially ones that fail to interconnect smoothly);
• Flagging inaccurate staff classification data to remain compliant with labor laws (more on this in a moment);
• Resolving data workflow issues between two systems that pose a security risk as well as a data accuracy concern;

And the list goes on. When districts must navigate outdated software systems, varying technical knowledge across staff, and slim budgets, the risk of inaccurate data increases, as does the amount of human time and effort required to address it.

#3: Increase confidence in compliance

Last, but in no way least, data errors increase a district’s risk of falling out of compliance with state and federal laws. The cost of even minor violations quickly adds up for a single district in penalties and additional work to resolve these issues under scrutiny. 

Let’s look at one place where inaccurate data and compliance risk collide: Individual Education Plans (IEPs). IEPs are central for serving students protected under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). This law requires that services provided be reasonably calculated to help students meet their goals. To fulfill this mandate, districts must keep records of services provided to these students, hold regular reviews like IEP meetings to evaluate the impact of their services, and ideally, allow the IEP to evolve alongside the student.

However, poor-quality data may inaccurately paint a picture of a student making little to no progress, or worse, meeting their goals when, in fact, they need further support. In either scenario, students may not receive the right services for their evolving needs, which may come under scrutiny during an audit or due process case under IDEA. Even with more dynamic IEP processes tightening the link between service tracking and goals, school and district teams need accurate data to make informed decisions that best support these students.

Additionally, this inaccurate data regarding IEP services rolls up to mandated state and federal reporting, creating new issues related to funding, reporting on a district’s progress towards strategic goals, and much more. 

Compliance issues also risk losing a community’s trust in its district and school leaders during already challenging times for educators. Accurate data helps prevent violations and a potential loss of this trust, underscoring just how critical it is for districts to prioritize responsible data stewardship this school year.

Did you know? Level Data’s suite of compliance tools ensures clarity, accuracy, and efficiency with everything from Special Education to compliance reporting. Learn more.

Gain greater accuracy with Level Data

To lead their communities through these chaotic times, district leaders need to feel confident in their tools and their data. With Level Data, district administrators gain not only clean, accurate data to inform critical decisions but also easy-to-use reporting and dashboards that connect the dots between dollars spent and strategic goals achieved. Learn more about the Level Data ecosystem today.