Leveraging Real-time Data to Improve Student Outcomes

Preparing high school students for a changing and increasingly complex world impacts not only the students themselves but also their families, future employers, and the overall community. Data plays a critical role in our ability to illuminate gaps and shed light on where the right change can be enacted for the greatest impact. However, career readiness data is often disparate in nature, as it is derived from various, backward-looking sources. After the time-consuming task of wading through the data, LEAs can determine where students missed the mark by one or two points and can adjust their program for the coming year. While the data helps chart the performance of graduated students and missed funding opportunities, it does little to address the trajectory of currently-enrolled students or identify opportunities to get these students on track and secure funding bonuses. 

CCMR programs are also legislatively led and are tweaked and adjusted often. These adjustments include certification, program types, and funding, requiring LEAs to carry the burden of tracking and adapting their student monitoring and programs to meet the changing requirements — an untenable arrangement for smaller districts and schools where administrators wear many hats. 

Hosted and supported by ESC Region 10 and developed in partnership with Ed-Fi Alliance and the Dallas Country Promise/Commit Partnership, CCMR Insights is a web-based software tool designed to help staff use real-time data to get and keep students on track for CCMR. Following the approval of Texas House Bill 3 in 2019, school districts have an even greater need to monitor and predict student progress. For schools and districts to be able to capture the necessary funding bonuses for their CCMR programs, they need to know when and where intervention is needed for students currently enrolled. 

The team understood from outset that a key element to predictive analysis is a healthy repository of data over several years. Myriad data sources provide insight and shed light on the skill gap. However, the various high school assessment tools and the necessary input of historical data reaching back to 2018 are from different systems that speak different data languages. Finding a way to create a throughline across these disparate sources was an essential step to create a predictive tool as powerful as the CCMR Insights dashboard. 

The potential of what can be unlocked through the collaboration between Ed-Fi, Region 10, and the CCMR Insights team is just coming into focus. Through their partnership they have stood up and launched a web-based software tool to keep high school students on track and provide them with an actionable plan to meet their CCMR requirements. The results of the partnership are also allowing schools to maximize accountability ratings and outcome-based funding, predict scores in real-time, and develop funding plans. And as the team knows well, unlocking the potential of predicative analysis requires data. What was once backward-looking, outdated data that failed to provide a holistic view of a current student has been transformed into life-changing insights. By utilizing the Ed-Fi standard technology, CCMR Insights is able to provide a solution for LEA’s that empower them to make real-time strategic plans for their programs — and each and every student.