With budget cuts to career technical education (CTE) looming, states must provide solid data to support the efficacy and value of CTE. Now more than ever, quality data analysis is critical to making changes that will increase student achievement.  According to the Data Quality Campaign (DQC), “states cannot do more with less without collecting and using quality data to determine which programs and policies increase student achievement and the state’s return on investment.”

DQC’s state-by-state analysis shows that states are making unprecedented progress in improving their longitudinal data systems. Though states have improved their longitudinal data collection, many have not taken the necessary actions to improve access so that the data can be effectively used. To make the transition from data collection to effective use, states must:

• Fulfill the 50-state commitment to implement the 10 Essential Elements by September 2011
• Link K-12 with early childhood, postsecondary and workforce data to answer critical policy questions
• Provide teachers, students and parents with access to longitudinal student-level data
• Share data about teacher impact on student achievement with educator preparation institutions
• Enact statewide preservice policies, including certification and licensure, and program approval, to build educator capacity to use data

To view your state’s progress, visit the DQC State Analysis website.

Tags: accountability, Data

This entry was posted on Friday, February 18th, 2011 at 9:50 am and is filed under News, Research. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.