A new instrument shows how CA students really do after high school

From Adam EchelmanCalmness

This story was originally published by CalmattersS Register about their ballots.

Do you want to know how students in your child’s school neighborhood perform five or even 10 years down?

Today, California has released a new tool that aims to do this – and many others – much easier to answer. Known as the Career Data System known These new “management boards” Consoline data from approximately 3.5 million university graduates in California, showing where they enrolled in college, what kind of degrees they won, and the salaries they made four years after receiving a diploma or a college certificate.

Years of years, parents and researchers complain Access to educational data is unnecessarily difficult -With information disseminated on various websites, drop -down menus and graphics. A new data system was a key priority for the Newsom Administration, although encountered Months of delayspartly because of data confidentiality concerns.

“We have people who have been calling for this (a data system) for 10 years for 20 years,” says Mary Ann Bates, CEO of Cradle to Career Data System. “The efforts that the state is making now to unite this is that students, families, teachers and politicians can have this information on hand.”

Some other countries, such as KentkiThey have already introduced better approaches by creating one, understandable website that has data from state providers of K-12, college and labor. In 2019, California allocated more than $ 24 million to catch up.

But today’s data tool represents only part of the state’s education and workforce data. He examines only students who attend one of the public colleges and universities in California and examines only students who graduate from the Public High School. An instrument of the California Department of Education shows that among the graduates of public schools in California for 2015 who have turned to the college, 15% went to a private or out -of -country college or university within 16 months.

Bates said her team would ultimately update these public management boards to include information about students who attend private or out -of -country colleges and who do not graduate from high school.

As part of this system data, the state has also promised Play other data, Including information about early childhood education and teacher education and detention. The Bates team initially stated that teacher training information would be available until June 2024, but it remains in Limbo. She said this instrument would be released “soon”, although she did not specify a date.

How useful is it?

Although the career career data system presents information in new ways, the information itself is not new. California has already developed such instruments, but no one is so widely available to the public or includes data from so many different schools and government agencies.

The State Education Department has already allowed users to download data and sort prices at college or district, although most parents are unlikely to take the time to download the spreadsheet and try to understand all column names. One force of the system is its ease of use – the tool shows key data visually and intuitively.

But any data system can use few different numbers. For example, the department uses DataQuestwho has a wider definition What it means to “finish” high school. The career career career data system seems only to traditional university graduates, not people who receive GED, said Ryan Aestlado, the cradle of the director of career system data programs.

The non -profit partnership for educational results operates one of the many predecessors of the Cradle to Carean career data system, and President Alex Barrios said it was skeptical that the new state instrument was a real improvement.

“If the dashboard does not start the cohort in grade 9, then the dashboard is useless,” Barios wrote in a text on Calmatters. Just over 88% of the students who started as nine -graders graduated from high school five years later, according to 2024. State dataBut for certain groups, such as African American or Indians students, the degree of completion is lower.

Without information about high school, the new instrument makes it look like students attend a college at a higher rate than he actually said. It’s called Cradle to the Career Data System, he added, not “Graduation of High School in the College Data System”. In the previous tool that Barrios helped to operate, known as Cal-Pass Plus, researchers can look not only for graduates, but also for all students who enrolled in 9th grade.

Bates said Cradle to Career Data System is as powerful as the data that schools and agencies share. These current data have been using information from the last 10 years, which is only enough time to measure long-term college and career career results, she said, adding that other data would be added, such as information about the long-term fates of younger students.

Although the data lacks certain characteristics, this can still lead to powerful findings: one of the new data management boards shows that community students who receive a certificate earn more than those who receive an associated degree – although certificate programs usually take a lot of time.

The career career career data system is a “neutral source of information,” Bates said. “Our office will not weigh specific policies or interpret why.”

The Calmatters Mikhail Zinshteyn higher education reporter contributed to this story.

This article was Originally Published on CalMatters and was reissued under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivatives License.