Notes from the November Board of Ed: post secondary workforce

 there's a backup here

Curtin: a demonstration of a report we recently released
"we release a lot of data...about every Thursday night, we're releasing something"
wage report was required by the Student Opportunity Act
have reporting on post-secondary enrollment for some time
wage earning and the combination of the two, basically
report was made public on October 27

National Student Clearinghouse through a data match twice a year
primary matching done through school, name, date of birth
only 97.4% of U.S. institutions, no international ones
directory matching will never be perfect
students under FERPA have the right to opt out of information sharing
data comes back anonymized
wage earnings: only have information for MA businesses that contribute to unemployment insurance
no federal (no post office, no military), no self-employed
wage data only includes those not found in postsecondary education: "only counted" each in one place
"you could think about it different ways"
for public information only; no current plans for formal or informal accountability purposes
will be updated annually
"new stuff for us" will learn from this
wage gaps between and among different groups exists
earnings increase over time and vary within industry field
note: small N size in some district and student groups "something to be careful about"
large percentage of MA high school graduates are employed in MA many years after graduation

he's now talking through the report that he's showing them, which one can't really recreate and I can't find the report...

ah, it's here

Stewart: what next? 
Curtin: stopped at district level; interested in school level
look at ways to display the data (and gives kudos to those who put it together)

West: wage outcomes a little unstable and hard to learn from until late twenties
"bunch of ways we have to be smart in how we use this information"
"opportunity to broaden accountability" of secondary schools
think that's something we should be considering as a Board
cross-agency resource
Louisiana and Texas I know have incorporated their post-secondary into their high school accountability system
West: right now high school accountability is based almost exclusively on tenth grade MCAS
Curtin: our system right now ends at graduation
"there are other factors" besides 10th grade MCAS, "but it does end at graduation"
there are states that look at post-secondary factors, including enrollment, others take it a step farther and include remediation
West: others look at seamless enrollment, enrolling the next year
important to do it based on growth, taking into account where students are when they enter high school