Mississippi LifeTracks is an interoperable data system, governed by an interagency board, that supports research and analysis by providing linkages among early childhood, K-12 education, postsecondary education, and workforce data to improve career-readiness outcomes for students.
The Mississippi Department of Education’s Office of Research and Development is led by a director charged with using data and research to improve student outcomes across the state. Guided by a Dynamic Research Framework, the Office of Research and Development uses a longitudinal data system to evaluate the effectiveness of programs in areas such as early learning.
The Mississippi Department of Education has a research agenda informed by the State Board of Education’s strategic plan and a focus group of department staff members. The agenda’s associated questions and a dynamic framework shape the activities of the Office of Research and Development, which uses data to drive the department’s evidence-based decision-making.
A 2019 amendment to Mississippi’s 2014 performance-based budgeting law provided stronger, more rigorous evidence definitions for identifying intervention programs as evidence-based, research-based, promising, or other with no evidence of effectiveness. While the law continued to require the Mississippi Department of Corrections, Department of Health, Department of Education, and Department of Transportation to report during the annual budget cycle on their programs’ performance and cost-benefit ratio, the amendment authorized the Joint Legislative Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review to designate additional agencies to comply with the law. Additional agency inventories include the Department of Revenue and Division of Medicaid. The Mississippi Joint Legislative Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review (PEER) released a 2018 Results First Mississippi analysis on juvenile justice programs at a residential facility to help the state to invest more resources in high-quality interventions and ensure implementation fidelity.