The Strategic Data Project (SDP) designed the College-Going Diagnostic to inform state and district leaders about high school graduation, college enrollment, and persistence rates; and to identify potential areas for action to increase student achievement in high school, preparedness for college, and postsecondary attainment. In 2012, the New York State Education Department (NYSED) and SDP launched an initiative to assess student attainment in New York State public schools, and identified a set of questions to understand how first-time ninth-grade students in New York State public schools progress through high school and into college. The interactive graphics supporting the findings in this brief are designed to promote deeper engagement with the analysis through data exploration.
View the interactive report on the SDP website

Fulton County Schools (FCS) partnered with SDP to produce the SDP College-Going and Human Capital Diagnostic for its district. The diagnostics are meant to demonstrate how districts can capitalize on existing data to understand its current performance, set future goals, and strategically plan responses.  The College-Going Diagnostic report illuminates students’ enrollment over time and compares these patterns across a variety of student characteristics and academic experiences.  The Human Capital Diagnostic report investigates teacher effectiveness with the intention of informing district leaders about patterns of teacher effectiveness and identifying areas for policy change that could leverage teacher effectiveness to improve student achievement.

Boston Public Schools collaborated with SDP to produce the SDP College-Going Diagnostic for its district. The diagnostic is designed to identify potential areas for action to increase students’ levels of academic achievement, preparedness for college, and postsecondary attainment. It is also intended to demonstrate how districts can capitalize on existing data to understand its current performance, set future goals, and strategically plan responses.

The School District of Philadelphia partnered with SDP to produce the SDP College-Going Diagnostic. The diagnostic analyses summarized in this report focus on 1) student performance in the district during high school and into college, 2) critical junctures along the way that affect student success, and 3) student characteristics and other factors that are most strongly related to college enrollment and persistence.

Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) partnered with SDP to produce the SDP College-Readiness Diagnostic for its district. The diagnostic analyses focus on 1) how students across the district progress toward high school graduation, 2) whether and how students who fall off track for graduation recover and go on to graduate, and 3) the progress of students toward the completion of A-G requirements.

This report examines Albuquerque Public Schools (APS) students’ high school performance, college enrollment, and college persistence patterns, and compares these patterns across a variety of student characteristics and academic experiences. To conduct the analyses, researchers connected APS administrative student data (including demographics and test scores) to college enrollment records and to student surveys conducted by SDP Data Fellows at several APS high schools. These data sources allowed the diagnostic to track students’ progress through high school to graduation, and to examine their college-going aspirations and actual college outcomes.

Gwinnett County Public Schools worked with SDP to create the SDP College-Going Diagnostic for its district. The diagnostic is designed to identify potential areas for action to increase students’ levels of academic achievement, preparedness for college, and postsecondary attainment. It is also intended to demonstrate how districts can capitalize on existing data to understand its current performance, set future goals, and strategically plan responses.

Fort Worth Independent School District (FWISD) collaborated with SDP to create the SDP College-Going Diagnostic to examine the district’s college-going enrollment and persistence rates.  The diagnostic is designed to identify potential areas for action to increase students’ levels of academic achievement, preparedness for college, and postsecondary attainment.

In the fall of the 2012–13 school year, the Denver Public Schools and SDP engaged in a research collaboration aimed at providing the district with preliminary evidence that could inform some of these questions, potentially help refine existing reform efforts, and motivate support for future initiatives, such as establishing consistent grading policies rooted in new Common Core standards. This report presents findings from our research diagnostic, illuminating the extent to which average GPAs, standardized assessment scores, and college remediation rates vary across the district and within DPS high schools; how GPAs differ for students from different racial/ethnic backgrounds; and whether knowing a student’s middle school helps predicts her subsequent success.

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education collaborated with the Strategic Data Project (SDP) to conduct the SDP College-Going Diagnostic. This report examines key findings related to students’ college enrollment and college persistence patterns, and compares these patterns across a variety of student characteristics and academic experiences. The report highlights results primarily at the state level and, for illustrative purposes, for a handful of school districts and high schools.

The Strategic Data Project (SDP) partnered with the Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) to expand the use of data to inform policy and management decisions within the district. As part of this partnership, SDP collaborated with CMSD to analyze the high school graduation and college-going outcomes of CMSD students.

The Strategic Data Project (SDP) partnered with the Colorado Department of Education(CDE) and the Colorado Education Initiative (CEI) to investigate statewide trends in students’ high school graduation and their enrollment and persistence in college. This brief summarizes several of the key findings from this research collaboration.

The Delaware Department of Education collaborated SDP to produce the SDP College-Going Diagnostic. The diagnostic analyses examine students’ high school performance, college enrollment, and college persistence patterns, and compares these patterns across a variety of student characteristics and academic experiences.