In partnership with the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, the research and evaluation team at Metro Nashville Public Schools has developed a mock-up dashboard that, when finalized, will enable educators to bring data from different sources together so as to generate standard reports of actionable information to support students for college and career readiness.

One of several city school systems to receive a Dell Foundation grant under the Effective Assessment Data Management project, Metro Nashville was tasked with addressing the essential question, “Are our students who will graduate on time college- and career-ready?” Through a grant from the Gates Foundation, the district has developed a counselors’ dashboard aligned with EdFi Unifying Data Model standards, which—once it goes live—will be nationally available through the EdFi data community.  

The dashboard will provide counselors and teachers with class-wide and individual student information on credit accumulation, course grades, ACT test scores, attendance and behavior. The data enables counselors to identify composite trends as well as situate students at a glance in one of four categories: at risk for dropping out; on track to graduate but not college-ready; college- and career-ready; or advanced.

While significant research has been done on dropout prevention and on college readiness indicators, relatively little guidance is available on actionable indicators that show whether students taking alternative postsecondary pathways are career-ready: on track to attain a living wage within three years of high school graduation. Metro Nashville Public Schools hopes to address this using a longitudinal study drawing on the P20 Connect TN Data System that links education and workforce development data, to look at career outcomes for MNPS graduates from 2013 onward who are not successfully enrolled in a postsecondary institution.

The team hopes to identify which educational indicators are most predictive of career success and what cut points to use for interventions. To this end, researchers will look for possible correlations between earning a living wage of at least $25,000 three years after graduation (or not), and such educational indicators as GPA, grades in key courses, ACT scores, attendance, and discipline. Because the longitudinal data already exists in the P20 system, researchers could complete the analysis within a few months of receiving access to the data.

The ultimate goal is to understand where and how to intervene to help ensure non-college bound students have robust postsecondary plans and are prepared to pursue them. Student ACT outcome projections, based on state testing as early as fourth grade, have proven 80% accurate and very hard to budge. The challenge that MNPS hopes to resolve is how to best prepare students who are not college-ready to succeed in the workforce, without falling into the pitfall of tracking. Most school counselors’ caseload does not provide an opportunity to sit down with individual students to assess their postsecondary options, yet such individual support is needed and must be developed over time.