Giving Compass' Take:

· A recently released report from Education Insights Center suggests that schools in California should have a data system to track information about students as they move from school to workforce. As EdSource reports, it is important to track this information to see progress in the new state programs.  

· What would this report tell us about progress in new state programs?

· Here is how to help high school graduates enter the workforce.

Despite commanding roughly 40 percent of state spending, California’s system of public education, from kindergarten to college, cannot answer whether students are successfully moving from school to the workforce.

A report released by Education Insights Center, a research group at CSU Sacramento, says that California should be able to answer the following questions about its students:

  • Which high schools excel at graduating students prepared for college?
  • Are high schools that receive additional state money to assist low-income students increasing the number of students heading to college?
  • Do students who don’t immediately head to college after graduating from high school eventually enter a community college, California State University or University of California?
  • How do these and other outcomes vary by race, region, the incomes of families and other factors?

What’s missing, according to the new report, is a data system in California connecting information about students as they move through K-12 and college into the workforce.

And as the state Legislature and the governor allocate more spending on programs designed to improve student outcomes, having good data is essential to monitoring the progress of those programs, the report said. The authors of the report wrote, “It is imperative for the state to be able to understand the success of its various reforms and initiatives.”

Read the full article about tracking students from school to workforce in California by Mikhail Zinshteyn at EdSource.