Giving Compass' Take:

• In this post at The 74, the president and CEO of Expect More Arizona discusses how her program created a nonpartisan tool to track the state's progress toward eight specific education goals.

• In what ways can other states and school districts use a similar model? What would be the incentives for reaching such goals (or consequences of not reaching them)?

• Here's a closer look at education spending and results, state by state.

In a state that ranks near the bottom in teacher pay, with thousands of vacant teaching positions, dwindling enrollment in teacher training programs, lagging test scores, and a stubborn achievement gap, it can be hard to envision how to move forward.

Stories of Arizona families who cannot afford quality preschool, or teachers financially unable to continue in their chosen profession, are tales that leaders hear all too often, and while there are many positive programs in our schools and communities, we know we need to do more.

To that end, Expect More Arizona and the Center for the Future of Arizona launched the Arizona Education Progress Meter in 2016 to serve as a nonpartisan, shared source of information and to provide a guidepost for the future. Centered on a set of eight key metrics and corresponding goals, the data paint a clear picture of where we stand today, as well as what success should look like. Because, as we all know, what gets measured gets done.

The Progress Meter is innovative and unique, but it’s a model that any state could replicate. The primary factor for success is the engagement of education experts and community stakeholders who are willing to collaborate. In Arizona, it took nearly two years of engagement with hundreds of individuals and organizations to fully develop the dashboard.

The 2030 goals (and benchmark levels) are:

  • Increasing the number of children in quality early learning settings to 45 percent from 21 percent
  • Boosting third-grade reading proficiency to 72 percent from 41 percent
  • Improving math proficiency among eighth-graders to 69 percent from 36 percent
  • Raising the high school graduation rate to 90 percent from 78 percent
  • Decreasing the number of 16-to-24-year-olds who are neither working nor in school to 7 percent from 15 percent
  • Raising the number of high school graduates who pursue postsecondary education to 70 percent from 53 percent
  • Increasing postsecondary attainment rates to 60 percent from 42 percent
  • Increasing teacher pay to the national median (by 2022)

Read the full article about how Arizona is using its Progress Meter to improve schools by Christine Thompson at The 74.