> For example with school attendance data you could easy release a dataset at the county level with every student’s record with unique generated student id, race, grade, gender, absences by year (or even month) and still have 5-20 of each category to be able to show attendance trends before and after Covid without being able to identify individuals.
Yes, for any kind of specific study you want to do, you can form aggregates that support it. Indeed, lots of aggregate data is already released publicly.
Lots of aggregate data is already released publicly.
If you want the actual, real data, so you can answer questions like --- "what about attendance on Mondays in students receiving subsidized lunch-- what does it predict about that student's attendance in the future?" --- you'll either need the real data, or for the state to basically do your data aggregation for your specific question.
Yes, for any kind of specific study you want to do, you can form aggregates that support it. Indeed, lots of aggregate data is already released publicly.
Lots of aggregate data is already released publicly.
If you want the actual, real data, so you can answer questions like --- "what about attendance on Mondays in students receiving subsidized lunch-- what does it predict about that student's attendance in the future?" --- you'll either need the real data, or for the state to basically do your data aggregation for your specific question.