INDUSTRY FIELD GUIDE
Education agency reporting cohort and metadata for AI
Two education reports may use the same label while covering different school years, entities or populations.
NAICS 923110 · Administration of Education Programs
Two education reports may use the same label while covering different school years, entities or populations. The U.S. Department of Education’s Ed Data Express provides documentation for education program data, including data collected through EDFacts. An agency can test whether an assistant preserves those definitions when comparing aggregates. U.S. Department of Education Ed Data Express documentation
Create a fictional reporting workbook with district totals and a second export broken down by school. Change the eligible cohort in the second year. Ask which totals can be aggregated and why the year-over-year comparison needs an adjusted basis. A reviewer should verify the grain, year and cohort definition.
Use invented counts or cleared aggregates with release notes. Exclude student records, small groups that could identify a person, staff identities and internal program files.
Describe a synthetic education reporting example
Original Fiund exercise
School rows cannot be added to their district total as extra entities
A fictional education report changes both row grain and eligible cohort between years. It uses invented aggregates without students, small groups or internal program files.
| Record | Source | What it records |
|---|---|---|
| EA1 | Year 1 practice district report | District D total 100 for cohort C1, all eligible organizations in its stated scope. |
| EA2 | Year 2 export | District D total 80 for revised cohort C2; constituent school S1=30 and S2=50, both included in the district total. |
| EA3 | Metadata note | C2 excludes a category included in C1. No reprocessed year-1 C2 total or year-2 C1 total supplied. |
Question for the model
What year-2 total is supported, and can the model call 100 to 80 a like-for-like decline or add school rows to the district row?
Show the reference answer and checks
EA2 supports 80 at district grain, with its included school rows 30+50 reconciling to that total. Adding all three rows would double-count the same population. EA3 also makes C2 different from C1, so 100 to 80 is a reported difference across cohorts rather than a supported like-for-like decline. Preserve year, grain and definition, and request a common-cohort series for that interpretation.
- Summing district totals and their included school components as independent rows.
- Attributing a cross-year difference to change in outcomes when the eligible cohort changed.
Fields to preserve
- Entity grain and inclusion relationship
- Prevents hierarchical double-counting.
- School year and cohort definition
- Identifies which populations are comparable.
- Reprocessing availability
- Shows whether a common-basis trend can be constructed.
Test another case
Provide a reprocessed year-1 C2 total while retaining the old C1 report. Require the common-cohort comparison to cite the reprocessed source and preserve the original separately.
Use invented counts or appropriately cleared released aggregates. Exclude students, identifying small groups, staff identities and internal records.
Discuss a contribution
Describe the sources you control, the task they could support and what has already been checked. Use the existing-data assessment for an archive or the collection brief for a new recording project. The contributor agreement defines Fiund’s licensing authority and compensation. A guide or fictional exercise does not establish an accepted collection or a sale.