Giving Compass' Take:

•  Michal Kurlaender, writing for EdSource, discusses how students can benefit from a productive state education system, specifically for the success of cradle-to-career programs. 

• How is the current system failing students? Where can education donors fill resource gaps for schools?

• Here are three ongoing trends in education data. 

When Gov. Gavin Newsom recently proposed building a statewide data system to track students from pre-K through college and into the labor market, the empirical researcher in me said: “Finally.”

Not because the new system, once established, will link between data sets that I can analyze — though that’s a welcome development for scholars everywhere — but because it’s an asset that California students can no longer do without.

A state data system, done right, is one of the most important investments California can make in helping more students finish college.

Education data on students, such as courses taken in K-12, test scores and credits earned, is essential to understanding student progress from “cradle to career.” Right now, however, students regularly fall through the cracks navigating between high school and college — and the disconnected data systems of each.

Exhibit A: Students now have multiple options to get a head start on college through taking Advanced Placement (AP) courses and enrolling in dual enrollment courses at community college while still in high school. But without connected data systems, the onus is on students to make sure these additional units count toward their college degree.

Exhibit B: When students register for college courses they are asked to demonstrate academic readiness. The California Community Colleges (CCC) and the California State University (CSU) are rightly shifting from a single placement test to relying on “multiple measures” showing how students did in high school to help students’ avoid getting placed on a remedial track when they get to college, which has been quicksand for many.

A real data system could allow California’s public colleges and universities to access valuable information about students’ educational trajectories to more effectively communicate with K-12 about college preparation, more efficiently account for credit accumulation and, ultimately, help more students graduate.

Read the full article about education data system by Michal Kurlaender at EdSource.