RPIC to RIC Crosswallk

Highlights

Record Level: RPIC x RIC 
Record Count: ~450,000 RPIC: RIC pairs
Years Covered: 2003-Present
Population Coverage: K12 School personnel with education records in K12 or postsecondary

The RPIC/RIC Crosswalk allows researchers to connect records between the State of Michigan’s student and educator data systems. In practice, this means that the K12 and postsecondary education records of students who later become public K12 education personnel can be joined with administrative MERI K12 Staffing data such as credentials gained and teaching assignments.

Constructing the RPIC/RIC Crosswalk

The RPIC/RIC Crosswalk is produced by loading staff records into the matching algorithm used by the Center for Educational Education & Performance to identify students. This algorithm requires a threshold of 95% for a match, with lower confidence levels requiring manual resolutions. Records failing the match criteria remain unmatched if confidence levels are below 85%. To be considered for a match, complete identity information including first name, last name, date of birth, and gender must be available. As the source systems are updated regularly, expect some match results to change over time.

Overall, the match rate for student and educator records for men (97%) was roughly comparable to that of women (96%) after adjusting the matching process to allow for multiple (e.g., maiden) last names. Final match rates were far higher for educators who earned their teaching credentials from public universities (98%) than those from private universities (83%). Moreover, matches from public universities were validated at a higher rate (99%) compared to those from private universities (86%). This discrepancy is likely due to differences in state data reporting requirements between public and private universities, leading to gaps in data coverage and quality.

RICs in the Crosswalk not in MERI Data

Of the RICs in the crosswalk file, roughly 10% are not found in either the K12 data or Postsecondary base file. While at first blush that appears to be a great many records that may be missing, there are a number of reasons that the UICs the state uses to generate RICs might be out of range. These include:

• UICs can be created for Child Development and Care
• UICs can be created upon enrollment of a student, but the student ended up not attending
• UICs can be created for Adult Education
• UICs can be created for non-public students
• UICs may not be reported in the years that we have data for, only appearing earlier

There is a noticeable difference in the rate of RPICs found in the MERI K12 Staff Data based on the birth year of a given record. For records with a birth year of 1985 or later in the base staff file, ~85% are in the RPIC/RIC crosswalk. Records with birth years of 1984 or earlier are found in the RPIC/RIC crosswalk in only ~20% of cases. This makes sense, since the RIC identifier would not have been given to students in decades earlier in the 20th century. However, it does mean that studies using the crosswalk should be careful to specify that their study is limited to teachers who attended Michigan public schools during the data-collecting era.