Over the last two decades, states invested significant amounts of their funding to design, develop and implement statewide P-20 education data systems to collect, store and examine data. These systems were aptly named Longitudinal Data Systems (LDSs). Along the way, 13 SREB states won federal LDS grants to support their efforts. Some SREB states also used federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act stimulus funds to support their state LDS efforts. LDSs offer states the potential to collect, analyze and share longitudinal education data from prekindergarten to the workforce –– at each critical level: student, school, district and state.