Race to the Top: Accelerating College and Career Readiness in States - P-20 Longitudinal Data

P-20 Longitudinal Data Systems The Race to the Top (RTTT) competition asks states to continue making substantial progress in the quality of their longitudinal data systems, and, significantly, to dramatically improve their ability to use longitudinal data to inform policy and practice from the classroom to the state house. Today, too few states collect, meaningfully report, and use data to inform public discourse about students’ preparation for college and careers. The RTTT competition gives states committed to college and career readiness an unprecedented opportunity to build the tools to measure results, guide decision‐making and investments, and provoke honest conversations about whether and how schools are on track for, meeting, or exceeding college and career readiness goals. But data alone is not enough: To foster meaningful dialogue and make continuous progress towards college‐ and career‐ready goals, states need to make college and career readiness a central feature of their public reporting. A seamlessly integrated, accessible P‐20 longitudinal data system with college and career readiness as its central driver should be a linchpin of any state’s effort to maximize the impact of its RTTT strategy. These systems provide educators and decisionmakers with critical pieces of information about student achievement and school progress and are foundational to reaching states’ goals of readiness and success. But implementing a longitudinal data system itself is not sufficient. States must also help schools and districts deploy instructional improvement systems that ensure educators have the information they need to improve instruction, as well as reporting and analysis tools that help them identify which students are not on‐track for college‐ and career‐ready success well before high school graduation. Critically, states must also seize the opportunity RTTT provides to move beyond current state report cards and begin sharing with parents, educators, policymakers, and the public transparent, accessible, understandable information about how well the state, districts, and schools are meeting key college‐ and career‐ready goals. Simply shining a light on progress towards college and career readiness within a school or district – even when not coupled with specific sanctions and rewards – has the potential not only to change the conversation, but to change the behaviors and expectations within the school itself. Meeting the Race to the Top Challenge: Building College and Career Readiness Capacity into Data Systems Under the Race to the Top draft criteria, states will be evaluated on the degree to which their statewide longitudinal data system includes the twelve elements specified in the America COMPETES Act (see Table 1). To date, a significant majority of states have implemented about half of those elements – including unique student identifiers, student‐level enrollment and test data, and student‐level graduation and dropout data – all This guide is one of a series of papers Achieve has prepared to help states maximize the opportunities presented through the Race to the Top Fund (RTTT). In accompanying papers, Achieve addresses recommendations for leveraging high‐quality standards and assessments, turning around low performing schools, and improving teacher effectiveness. Taken together, these papers offer advice to help state leaders develop comprehensive RTTT reform strategies firmly anchored in the goal of college and career readiness for all students. The full set of RTTT papers is available at http://www.achieve.org/RacetotheTop.