As we take collective action to equitably increase postsecondary attainment across Illinois, the Illinois Education and Career Success Network is dedicated to helping equip our Leadership Communities with robust tools to help the regions identify goals and make informed decisions. To that end, the EdSystems team is now releasing an updated version of the Success Network Dashboard.
Prior to relaunching the dashboard, EdSystems, together with our fellow Network Organizers Advance Illinois and ISAC, engaged the Network’s Leadership Communities to understand their priorities for metrics and functionality. The dashboard allows users to visualize trend data, download it, easily group together data from multiple districts for comparison, and benchmark against state averages and top and bottom quartiles. These features can help communities base their actions on concrete data and measurable outcomes. This data-based decision-making process ensures that resources are allocated strategically and interventions are targeted. Further, this process can encourage collaboration as stakeholders can collectively work towards achieving common goals.
The dashboard is being released in three phases. Phase one includes data on postsecondary enrollment and community college remediation, which are now available. Phase two will consist of data on Career and Technical Education (CTE) and early college enrollment and will launch in winter 2023, while phase three will include 9th grade-on-track and graduation rates and will launch in spring 2024. With each launch, communities will be able to provide feedback to ensure we’re providing the data in the most helpful way.
Success Network Organizers hosted two regional meetings in June for Leadership Communities to engage with the data. Communities were asked to bring teams comprised of their secondary, postsecondary, workforce, and nonprofit partners to review the data. Network Organizers facilitated conversations with each community using a protocol designed to help communities grapple with key questions to help them make sense of the data. These questions included:
- What do you observe in the data?
- What questions emerge as you review these data?
- What practices in your schools/district might relate to these data?
- What actions might these data prompt?
Network Organizers encouraged communities to identify specific groups of people they need to engage to better understand how they might set goals to address gaps they see across groups. Groups identified include students, teachers, counselors, and administrators. Because examining disaggregated data is critical to advancing equity, we reviewed graduation rates from the Illinois Report Card and shared resources that communities can use to spur action. These resources include:
“I will conduct empathy interviews with Black male students who are not on track to graduate,” said one member of a Leadership Community.
“I appreciated the opportunity to do a deeper dive with data in collaboration with colleagues from two area high schools that feed into our college,” said another member.
We hope that by utilizing the Success Network Dashboard, our community partners can unlock the full potential of their data, leading to improved outcomes, efficiency, and, ultimately, greater impact. As we continue to build out the dashboard, we encourage you to interact with it and provide feedback via the form at the bottom of each dashboard page.
