A publication from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES), A Guide to Using State Longitudinal Data for Applied Research may be useful for state staff as background for interacting with researchers and may help state staff and researchers communicate across their two cultures. It highlights the opportunities and constraints that researchers may encounter in using state longitudinal data systems and offers approaches to addressing some common problems. While primarly addressing K-12 data system, the Guide notes that 43 states link early childhood education data to their K-12 data systems.