Department of Education (DOE) secretary Arne Duncan has put school districts on notice: They must show how their students' scores on state tests compare with their scores in national evaluations. The Obama administration also wants states to track and disclose longitudinal data, according to a recent Wall Street Journal report. Of course, educators have heard this all before. But the data the DOE is requesting in exchange for stimulus funds goes well beyond anything required under the federal No Child Left Behind law. It could take some states as long as two years to upgrade their retrieval systems sufficiently to gather all the information the feds insist on reviewing. While it may not be surprising that the government wants to keep a closer tab on school performance, schools are scrambling to become skilled data collectors and master number crunchers in order to keep the federal spigot open. This article describes how schools are making it work.