The emphasis on college readiness and completion has school districts eager to find out how their students are faring after graduation.
On Monday, the nonprofit National Student Clearinghouse and private education company Hobsons announced a partnership that will combine their research and reporting efforts to help streamline how schools get performance information on students after high school.
The clearinghouse currently offers StudentTracker reports to high schools on college enrollment and outcomes of their students. The new venture will integrate that information with Hobsons’ services, allowing schools to directly access StudentTracker reports through Naviance, Hobsons’ K-12 college- and career-readiness platform.
Both entities are known in the education market. The clearinghouse provides research services to more than 3,600 high schools and districts, as well as 3,300 postsecondary institutions. Hobsons’ Naviance is used in 5,500 schools.
The integration of StudentTracker and Naviance is slated to happen this fall. The cost will be $425 a year, per school, the same as schools currently pay to the clearinghouse directly to subscribe to StudentTracker.
Matching student records from the clearinghouse with Naviance should make it easier for schools to make use of information on graduates, according to Hobsons officials.
David Hawkins, director of public policy and research for the National Association for College Admission Counseling, based in Arlington, Va., says the arrangement between the clearinghouse and Naviance constitutes an interesting development in the management and implementation of school counseling activities, particularly as they pertain to college-readiness counseling.
“As a market venture, these organizations have targeted two niches identified by research as being in need of support: building capacity for schools to track student access to and success in postsecondary education, and equipping school counselors to manage the function of college-readiness counseling within the school setting,” says Hawkins. “Ensuring that counselors have the staffing and expertise to utilize these tools is critical in determining whether such tools will make a difference in the school.”