Editor’s note: This was first published by Forbes.
With graduation season in full swing, many students and their families are deservedly celebrating a major milestone. Successfully completing high school or college is a great accomplishment; but when “Pomp and Circumstance” fades into the background and the graduation parties are over, how do we know whether education has actually provided students with what they need for their futures?
The true marker of success in education shouldn’t be the graduation cap; it’s what happens after the tassel is turned.
Traditionally, our measures of educational outcomes have been pretty basic and not directly related to how graduates are using their education to improve their lives and their livelihood beyond school. Success has largely been measured by the number of students who graduate from high school or a postsecondary program, along with test scores designed to assess their knowledge and skills at a given point in time. These things are undoubtedly important, but graduation rates and test scores alone do not tell the full story of whether education is equipping students with the knowledge and skills necessary to build well-paying careers and actively contribute to their communities.
It’s time to think differently about how we measure success in our education systems—both K–12 and higher education. If the ultimate goal of education is to prepare students for successful futures after they leave our schools, we should prioritize those long-term outcomes.
A new report from Education Strategy Group and American Student Assistance examines how all fifty states are approaching the complexities of measuring long-term success in both K–12 and higher education. Though many states are making good faith efforts to capture data to better understand how education impacts students in the next phase of their lives, the report finds that too few are currently attaching meaningful incentives to reward schools and colleges for improving students’ postsecondary and workforce success.
More specifically, at the K–12 level, while many states now include college and career readiness metrics in their performance goals for high schools, just eight states extend their models to include measures of how high school graduates ultimately do after they graduate and get to college and the workforce. In higher education, only six states use measures of how students do in the workforce after leaving postsecondary institutions to inform funding decisions.
If we want to ensure that K–12 graduates do well in college and careers, and that college graduates, in turn, do well in the labor market, leaders at all levels of the education system need better, timelier and more detailed information about those outcomes. That information also needs to be attached to real incentives—including serving as part of funding and accountability models—to drive change. Leaders can only make changes to improve outcomes if they first have an understanding of what those outcomes are; otherwise, they are flying blind.
Part of the challenge in doing this well lies in the historical siloes that exist between K–12 education, higher education and the workforce. Each sector has developed its own measures and data systems over time, making it difficult to connect them and track a student’s progress and outcomes over time and across sectors.
Fortunately, a few states are leading the way in demonstrating what it looks like to build the infrastructure needed to understand long-term outcomes. Kentucky’s KYSTATS database sets a gold standard for data systems by collecting and integrating education and workforce data to offer policymakers and the public a more complete picture of how the systems connect to one another. This resource is a one-stop shop for understanding how the education to workforce continuum in Kentucky—from K–12 to postsecondary to employment—is serving Kentuckians. As an early leader in this work, Kentucky has offered a blueprint for other states to emulate in building their own systems to understand long-term outcomes.
With better systems in place, more states can and should hold themselves, their schools and their colleges accountable for the outcomes that matter the most for students’ long-term economic well-being. Though there is a long way to go, a select few states are stepping up in meaningful ways.
Vermont is the only state to include employment outcomes in its federal K–12 school accountability system. The state’s Post-Secondary Outcomes indicator measures the percentage of graduates who enroll in college or trade school, enlist in the military, or work full time in a job. By attaching this measure to formal accountability, Vermont plans to hold K–12 schools partially responsible for setting students up for long-term success.
On the financial side, Texas is leading the way by providing incentive funding to both K–12 districts and higher education institutions attached to the long-term measures that matter most. For K–12 districts, the state funds a College, Career, and Military Readiness Outcomes Bonus by which districts can earn bonus funding when they increase the number of high school students who enroll in higher education or complete an industry-recognized credential. Similarly, the state’s new outcomes-based funding model for community colleges provides funding based on the number of learners who earn credentials of value rather than the traditional approach of funding colleges based on the number of students enrolled in classes.
These changes in performance goals and funding levers are making a difference with schools. The financial bonuses for Texas high schools have driven higher participation rates in the college and career readiness offerings, and although it’s early, the new funding formula for community colleges is shifting the emphasis toward credential attainment and readiness for careers.
Long-term outcome measures aren’t only important for driving the performance of education institutions. This information needs to be shared with students and their families so that they can make informed choices about which options to pursue.
Some of the states with the best information are taking steps to use it to empower consumers, particularly when it comes to making informed choices about higher education.
Kentucky’s Students’ Right to Know dashboard, which is powered by KYSTATS, is a student-facing tool that allows users to see job projections, salary information, and where programs are offered for different majors. Even more impressively, Kentucky and its neighbors in Ohio, Indiana and Tennessee are addressing the challenge of gathering wage data for college graduates who move out of state by linking data in what they are calling a Multi-State Postsecondary Report.
Colorado, too, is helping students and institutions to understand the potential return on investment in higher education. Students can use the earnings outcomes dashboard to make informed decisions based on projected earnings by institution and major. The state also produces an annual return on investment report and is working to develop a “minimum value threshold” to ensure that institutions are only offering programs that will pay off for students.
While data and measurement might not be the flashiest topics in the education debate, they are among the most foundational. Centering long-term outcomes as core drivers of our educational priorities will help expand economic mobility for all. We need to think differently about success—and do a better job of measuring it—to improve outcomes for every student.
