The Durham Children’s Data CenterKenneth A. Dodge

Professor and Director of the Center for Child and Family Policy

Bert L’HommeSuperintendent of Durham Public Schools

Drew CummingsAssistant Durham County Manager

Anna Gassman-PinesAssistant Professor of Public Policy

Christina Gibson-DavisAssociate Professor of Public Policy

Helen EggerAssociate Professor and Chief of the Division of Child and Family Mental Health

Beth GiffordDirector of the Durham Children’s Data Center

April 28, 2015

History and Goals

1. Request by Durham community leaders for empirical analysis to support policy and practice decision-making

--- WOW!

2. Collaboration between Duke and Durham through MOAs

3. Initial funding for DCDC by:

Provost’s Office

Sanford School

Center for Child and Family Policy

The Duke Endowment

with longer term plans for external sources

North Carolina Education Research Data Center

Started in 2001 with ongoing MOA between Duke and NCDPI

Annual transfer of 4,000 data files on 1.5 million students

-- test scores, teacher salaries, graduation, addresses

-- create secure longitudinal data bases since 1989

-- merge with other files (higher ed, arrest, birth record)

NCERDC manages files and distributes to scholars

-- >300 projects (half Duke), >50 dissertations

-- require IRB and data security but no quality review

-- occasional research for NCDPI

-- almost self-supporting

DCDC Investments and Benefits The Durham Community

Invests: Time, commitment, and data

Receives: High-quality research and consultation

Duke Invests:

Faculty time, financial resources Receives:

Satisfaction of community service in area of expertise Experience interacting with policy leaders to inform scholarship Access to confidential administrative and survey data for research

Durham Community Partners

Durham Public Schools (Bert L’Homme, Heidi Carter)

Durham County Managers (Wendell Davis, Drew Cummings)

Durham County Division of Social Services (Michael Becketts)

Durham County Department of Health (Gayle Harris)

Durham Partnership for Children (Laura Benson)

Durham Alliance Behavioral Healthcare (Ann Oshel)

MDC (Made in Durham) (Max Rose)

Duke Faculty Members

Elizabeth Ananat Sanford Paul Bendich Mathematics

Richard Brodhead President Kelly Brownell Sanford

Robert Calderbank Computer Science Larry Carin Engineering

Charles Clotfelter Sanford Philip Cook Sanford

Sandy Darity Sanford Kenneth Dodge Sanford

Helen Egger Psychiatry Gavan Fitzsimons Fuqua

Anna Gassman-Pines Sanford Christina Gibson-Davis Sanford

Amar Hamoudi Sanford Matt Harding Sanford

Rick Hoyle Psychology Sally Kornbluth Provost

Helen Ladd Sanford Clara Muschkin Sanford

Candice Odgers Sanford Marcos Rangel Sanford

Guillermo Sapiro Engineering Seth Sanders Sanford

Phail Wynn Regional Affairs

Types of Projects

1. Type A (Initiated by Durham community leaders)-- review by executive committee (Dodge, Muschkin, L’Homme, Cummings)

What characteristics of pre-kindergarten merit expansion? How can we improve outcomes after high school exit? How are public services distributed across young families?

2. Type B (Initiated by Duke scholars for research)-- review by joint board (Calderbank, Futhey, Egger, Spencer) and DPS

How does receipt of food stamps affect academic performance? (Gassman-Pines)

How do non-cognitive skills predict school success?

(Hilygus and Gibson-Davis)

Ongoing Issues

1. Emerging data technology

2. Data security

3. Ethics of data transfer and use

4. Science of data matching

5. New role of university in the community

6. Evidence-based policy-making

7. Science

8. Opportunities for training

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SNAP Recency and Educational Outcomes

Anna Gassman-Pines

Laura E. Bellows

Acknowledgements: NSF (Award #DRL-1418333) and UC-Davis, Center for Poverty Research

Background The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)

is the largest food assistance program in the U.S. Families receive cash-like benefits once a month

For SNAP recipients, within-month variability in nutrition $ spent on food, calories, fruit and vegetable

consumption

Does this within-month variability extend beyond food and nutrition outcomes?

Question

Among children in households receiving SNAP:

What is the relationship between the time since benefit receipt and performance on end-of-grade achievement tests?

• On test day, some children’s households just received their SNAP and other children’s households got their SNAP two weeks ago. Are their test scores different?

Data North Carolina Education Research Data Center

2011-2012 End-of-Grade achievement test scores in reading and math, grades 3-8

Test administration dates Grade, gender, race/ethnicity, and school

Division of Social Services in the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services SNAP transfer dates and amounts for April, May, and June of

2012

Matched approximately 85 percent of SNAP children aged 9 to 14

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The Link between Education, Engagement, and Well-being

D. Sunshine Hillygus, Political ScienceChristina Gibson-Davis, Public Policy

Kenneth Dodge, Public PolicyJohn Holbein, Public Policy

This work supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation’s Political Science Division (SES-1416816).

Durham Public School’s (DPS) Mission Statement:

[The] goal is that every student will graduate prepared for a career, college and life… 

Use a pre-existing DPS student poll on school climate to examine:

•Grit•Civic engagement•Hope

Link student survey data to school context and academic well-being.

And (perhaps) shift the conversation away from test scores….

To speak to that mission statement:

Grit: the resilience or motivation to achieve a goal

Civic engagement: active participation in the political and community governing processes

Hope: optimism and sense of agency about future (many definitions)

Why these constructs?

• Speaks to importance of “non-cognitive” skills in educational well-being

• Contribute to student thriving, or full participation in social, economic and civic areas of life

Grit, Engagement, Hope

•School setting likely plays a role in their development

•Data demands been too great to understand the associations between school context, these constructs, and academic well-being

• Small samples

• Rarely (if ever) studied in context of school climate

Speaking to important gap

• Partnering with Durham Public Schools and Durham Children’s Data Center

• Utilizing existing DPS school climate survey

• Nine topics

• Administered annually to all 5th, 7th, and 11th graders

• 15-20 minutes

• Taken online during class in October

• Response rates quite high

Current Project

• Added questions on grit, civic engagement, and hope

• Match student responses to markers of educational success (EOG scores, suspensions, course taking)

• Use markers of school climate (teacher experience, classroom size, and school demographic composition) to predict grit, civic engagement, and hope

Current Project

1. What are DPS’ 5th, 7th, and 11th graders scores on grit, engagement, and hope?

2. Do these non-cognitive outcomes rise or fall as students move through DPS?

3. How do measures of engagement, grit, and hope relate to student test scores?

4. How does the school climate relate to grit, engagement, and hope?

Questions

• First round of data collected in October 2014

• Analysis take place summer, fall 2015

• Continue to work with DPS to refine questions, methods

• Partnership that will inform DPS’ mission to prepare students for academic success and beyond

Just the beginning…

• Happiness with school• Emotional safety• Physical safety• Student discipline• High expectations• Teacher support• Social and emotional learning• Student perception of the school climate• School/classroom learning environment

School Climate Survey topics

•I am a hard worker.

•Setbacks (delays and obstacles) don’t discourage me. I

bounce back from difficulties faster than others.

•I am optimistic and hopeful about my future.

•I believe I can make a difference in my community.

•When I’m old enough, I think I will vote in most elections.

•I pay attention to what’s going on in the news.

Added questions

Did not collect data on student names, addresses, social security numbers, or student ID

Use collection of variables for matching:

•Grade

•Home room teacher

•School

•Race

•Gender

•Day, Month of birth

Matching

• Matching done using Data Ladder, a program that uses a fuzzy logic algorithm to match fields from different sources

• Matching done by DCDC staff

• PIs given matched data that has been stripped of identifiers

Matching

Community | Innovation | Collaboration

The Duke Integrated Pediatric Mental Health Initiative

Partnership with Durham Public Schools

Helen Egger MDChief, Division of Child and Family Mental Health and

Developmental NeuroscienceCenter for Developmental Epidemiology

Information and Child Mental Health InitiativeDepartment of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Department of Pediatrics

DURHAM’S CHILDREN

MISSION STATEMENT Support DPS as it develops a system for addressing student mental health needs across the district. GOALS 1.Align MH initiatives across DPS, Duke, and community 2.Build an infrastructure to provide training and consultation to DPS that is sustainable and enhances the capacity of DPS staff to address students’ mental health needs3.Facilitate integrated mental health care for DPS students seen at Duke through streamlined processes and enhanced communication

4.Support and collaborate with the Durham Children’s Data Center to bring data analytics to DPS, Durham, and (hopefully) Duke Medicine data to enhance the mental health of DPS students and staff and improve mental health services for all DPS students

DPS-Community-Duke Mental Health Collaborative