P-20 Council Focusing on Transitions

The P-20 Council, chaired by Secretary of Education Lillian Lowery and State Board President Teri Quinn Gray, has articulated a new focus on transitions—both from early childhood to K-12 and from K-12 to higher education.

At the recent meeting, a subcommittee reported on the work done to identify transfer credits for dual enrollment students (still in high school) and transferring students (among higher education institutions. The state is now working with Academy One, a web-based system built as a partnership among the institutions of higher ed and the department of education.

The data committee reported on the development of a data cube (portion of the data warehouse) focused on higher education. Cohort-based data for the last three years is available through the school profiles—but not being used yet for research—on issues such as remediation, DSTP/DCAS and PSAT/SAT/ACT as predictors of college success, and dual enrollment impact on success and completion time.

The next topics to tackle—both promised in the state’s Race to the Top application— are (1) how to improve and inform preservice (higher education) programs for teachers, and (2) building the early childhood data system, a component of the state’s Head Start application.

Significant policy questions remain: Who will have access to which data? Who will govern those decisions? What will be done to ensure data is used to drive policy and instruction?  Since multiple institutions of education and state departments are involved, this is going to be complicated.