States have been working to develop longitudinal data systems to better gauge how students fare at all points on the educational pipeline. Rhetoric from the new administration about their importance, and stimulus money to help develop them, have only heightened the focus on such systems. A new report from the Data Quality Campaign finds that states are making progress (See my colleague Dakarai Aarons’ story.).
But while states are getting better at tracking how students progress from year to year, and knowing how many high school freshmen get diplomas four years later, they are not quite as good yet at being able to track their K-12 students into college, the DQC report found. Many educators and policymakers view this ability as pivotal to getting an accurate view of how well schools prepare students for college.