Educators Hope Data System Will Help Them Address Gaps

May 14th, 2013

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Educators hope a statewide longitudinal data system will help them address critical issues, such as increasing retention and graduation rates. The system tracks students from Kindergarten to 12th grade.

The Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education hosted a panel discussion on data uses. Educators discussed how to use the data system to help students. Panelist Andy Parsons, an assistant commissioner with the Technical College System of Georgia, said the data system can identify gaps, such as which students need remediation.

“By providing this information back to the high schools for them to be able to make informed decisions about the curriculum and coaching of students, hopefully it brings to the post-secondary side a more-prepared student that doesn’t require learning support, can go immediately into college-level courses, and in turn, can graduate much quicker,” Parsons said.

Fellow panelist Rubye Sullivan shares that hope. Sullivan, a research director for the Atlanta Public Schools, said data showed more than half of APS’s college-bound graduates needed remediation. She said that caused the district to take action.

“We also had to build in remediation during the high school experience such that as they entered post-secondary, they weren’t in need of the remediation anymore,” Sullivan said, “We had to remediate in real time.”

Educators hope taking such steps, based on data, will help boost college completion rates. They say that will be essential to meeting the state’s workforce needs in the upcoming years.