The Chronicle has an interesting piece today about how some states are keeping more data on students:

The most celebrated example is Florida, which began in 2001 to assemble a “data warehouse” that allows officials to track a person’s progress from kindergarten through graduate school and beyond, including postcollege wages and employment, military service, incarceration, and receipt of public assistance. Many researchers say that Florida’s system, along with somewhat less ambitious education databases in Texas, Washington, and roughly a dozen other states, is a vital tool for assessing schools and colleges and helping them to improve.

True enough. Florida “takes elaborate steps to ‘de-identify’ its information before handing it to outside researchers,” and other states should, too.

Of course, a database this size would allow for some serious analysis of affirmative action. Any wagers as to whether that’ll happen?