For nearly a decade, EdSystems has partnered with Rock Valley College, Rockford Public Schools, and Belvidere District 100 to strengthen college and career pathways across the northwest Illinois region. Together, we’ve supported work-based learning, dual credit, transitional instruction, and pathway development, all grounded in a shared commitment to helping students navigate meaningful routes from high school to college and career.
Along the way, we experimented with a more traditional research collaborative model, one where districts and colleges shared data to support periodic evaluation projects. While this work produced useful insights, it also revealed some challenges: Data collection was often episodic, research questions were sometimes shaped more by project timelines than by partner priorities, and the connection between analysis and day-to-day decision-making was not always clear.
In 2025, we made a deliberate shift to a data collaborative model. This change reflects a deeper rethinking of how data should function in regional partnerships—not as an occasional input to external studies, but as a shared asset that supports ongoing learning, collaboration, and improvement.
This work is still unfolding, but early results are promising. New analyses are helping partners better understand the students they serve, how learners move across institutions, and where systems are supporting, or unintentionally blocking, progress. Below, we share how this shift is taking shape and where we are headed next.
Starting with Shared Questions
Each partner in the Rockford Regional Education Research Collaborative can answer many questions on their own: who is enrolled in a course, how students are performing, or where participation is growing. But some of the most important questions only emerge when institutions look at their data together.
These shared questions focus on common interest points, including:
- How do students progress from high school to Rock Valley College and beyond?
- How do students participate in pathways, and how does their performance vary across programs?
- Who benefits from dual credit opportunities, and where do gaps persist?
- What do the demographics of participating students reveal about access and equity across systems?
Not every question requires linked data to answer, and not every dataset needs to be combined. But by developing questions together, partners gain clarity about what data already exists, what additional context is needed, and where collaboration adds the most value. Just as importantly, this process keeps the data work grounded in local priorities rather than abstract research agendas.
Building a Shared Data Environment
To support deeper collaboration, we have been building a secure, shared data environment that allows partners to contribute data, explore patterns, and validate findings together. Rather than treating data sharing as a one-time transaction, this structure supports ongoing use and learning.
The environment is designed to enable:
- Data organization by partner while still supporting cross-institution learning.
- Clear rules around access, privacy, and responsible use.
- Opportunities for partners to engage directly with their own de-identified data to ask questions and confirm insights.
Taking the time to update data agreements and align expectations has been a critical part of this work. It has created a foundation that is more adaptable to partner needs today and better positioned for future analysis as questions evolve.
Connecting the Story Across Systems
While the collaborative is still in its early stages, initial analyses at both the school district and college levels are already helping partners deepen their understanding of student experiences. These early insights are intentionally focused on building shared understanding and preparing for more integrated analysis over time. For example, we are currently using the data to assess which students are taking which math courses in each district.
The next phase of the collaborative centers on linking data across institutions to better understand student pathways from high school through postsecondary education. This step is both technically and organizationally complex, but it is also where the value of collaboration becomes clearest.
Importantly, this work emphasizes responsible interpretation. Rather than relying on simple comparisons, analyses will account for prior academic background and context, thereby more clearly isolating the impact of specific programs on student learning. This allows partners to identify which programs are most effectively supporting students—and where changes in design, access, or implementation could strengthen impact.
Looking Ahead: Why This Matters
As the collaborative continues to evolve, partners have expressed growing interest in extending learning beyond education systems and into employment outcomes. Understanding how students move from high school to college, and ultimately into meaningful work, is essential for evaluating the long-term impact of pathways, work-based learning, and career-focused programs.
Linking education data to workforce outcomes is challenging and requires thoughtful sequencing, strong partnerships, and appropriate infrastructure. Even intermediate steps—such as connecting high school experiences to college persistence or credential attainment—can provide valuable insight into whether programs are delivering on their promise.
Ultimately, the shift from a research collaborative to a data collaborative reflects a belief that data is most powerful when it supports shared learning over time. By building trust, aligning questions, and creating space for ongoing sense-making, regional partners gain clearer insight into student pathways, stronger alignment across institutions, and better tools for turning data into action.
Most importantly, this work creates the conditions for partners to learn together—not just about individual programs, but also about the systems that shape student opportunity from high school through college and beyond. Our goal is to continue to work with districts, colleges, and agencies to develop regional data collaboratives that can answer questions across the education and workforce continuum.
