A few states have linked pre-school, K-12, post-secondary, and workforce data into “P-20W” datasets with varied and limited success, often handicapped by data latency, fidelity, and gaps. Early education and workforce data remains sparse, and critical data points are absent from adjacent state agencies that impact student success, such as health and human services, foster care, or job training, to name a few.

The extended time that it takes for data to move from individual education settings, through intermediaries, and into a P-20W data aggregator, limits the usefulness and impact of the data. Researchers, practitioners, students and parents are only able to see data through a rearview mirror, but in this case, data is 18-months old and is definitely not “closer than it appears.” The opportunity for practitioners and parents to influence a student’s path is lost.

In addition, nuanced research questions remain difficult to answer due to poor data fidelity. As critical information moves between organizations, rigid, pre-defined standards structures are applied and data is held back at each step. Researchers are forced to bypass the P-20W datasets that were supposed to help them, and they must go back to individual institutions to access critical missing information, which takes time.

Individual state and agency attempts to tackle these problems are inefficient and waste limited public and philanthropic funds. Quite simply, these data problems are not unique to states or even to the education domain but are solvable through applying common, well-understood and proven data analytics patterns

So what if there was a way for states to leverage common patterns and practices to jump-start and accelerate their efforts to develop a longitudinal view of lifelong learner experiences? What if data generated in educational settings could be made available in days instead of months? What if the loss of data fidelity could be reduced or eliminated? What if leveraging modern privacy methodologies could unlock more data? What if we could finally answer the question of “what works in education”?

Parent, practitioner, and political enthusiasm for developing a robust longitudinal view of students is high, and practical technical solutions are widely available. The topic of linking learner data from multiple sources to answer research questions and to provide personalized learning and services has historically raised some privacy concerns. Many parents, however, after a pandemic year of cobbled-together home learning applications that cannot provide an integrated view of their student’s lessons, homework, status or progress also now questioning if the current status quo represents state-of-the-art.

At the same time, cloud-based data analytics solutions have emerged that make acquiring, curating, linking, aggregating, storing and visualizing disparate but related data more approachable. Major cloud vendors have strengthened their offerings, focusing on lowering the investment required to implement advanced data analytics and visualization capabilities.

In the past, lengthy implementation times meant building state-level longitudinal datasets was a multi-year process, subject to changes in funding and sponsorship. Reduction in cost and barriers in implementing cloud-based analytics has significantly reduced time-to-value, making deployments possible within political cycles.

A&M is engaged in a series of projects with states and philanthropic organizations to assess states’ approach to modernize their P-20W systems and to deliver meaningful, linked datasets for lifelong learners. Through our work, we have canvassed a broad set of stakeholders including education institutions, academics, researchers, cloud vendors, education technology companies, state-level P-20W data aggregators, as-well-as data analytics thought leaders outside of education to identify opportunities, wants and needs, and gaps.

Most recently, A&M deeply evaluated one state-level data aggregator to identify critical capabilities and assess the agency’s ability to deliver. We looked at the landscape of possible solution providers to assess how they could be leveraged to fill capability gaps. A&M applied best practice patterns to develop a conceptual solution design, mapped possible solutions from the landscape analysis onto the design and developed a roadmap and cost model to help inform the agency’s decision process.

With a target solution design, A&M helped guide the state-level agency through a decision process to select specific solution providers and technologies and assisted the agency in developing a concrete design and defining their projects to deliver the design. A&M worked with the agency staff to develop a proof-of-concept to demonstrate the selected technologies and validate hypotheses developed during the concrete solution design. Now, A&M is continuing to provide technology and program management assistance as the agency implements the project roadmap.

A&M is engaging more states in formalizing their solution design and roadmap for developing P-20W data systems. A&M is also working with states and philanthropies to develop a “playbook” that states can use to guide and jumpstart their P-20W journeys. We are exploring how technology companies could collaborate on developing a shared architecture vision and technology “accelerators” that could transform the months-long process of getting to a proof-of-concept into weeks and could be leveraged as a starting point for more formal implementation efforts.

We’re also exploring opportunities to work on a few particular “messy” problems that would be best to solve collectively. These are particularly challenging problems that would benefit from multiple states and technology providers joining forces together to develop common solutions that can be shared.

First is privacy for individual level student information. Opposing goals of making the most information available to a wide set of stakeholders while maintaining adherence to strict privacy laws tends to skew toward privacy over availability; however, new approaches to privacy can increase the level of directional information made available while continuing to provide strict privacy at the student level.

As more varied and rich data is added to P-20W datasets, the challenge of creating purposefully-linked data becomes increasingly difficult. As data moves beyond the K-12 domain, the existence of a common linking identifier is less common and if datasets from external non-state sources are targeted, a common identifier will almost certainly not be available. There are data science approaches to linking data without a common identifier that can be applied. Additional requirements such as being able to unlink and relink data in the case of false positives and the need to re-identify individual data for small cohort interventions will be needed.

The purposefully-linked longitudinal view of lifelong learner experiences that has remained elusive is coming more clearly into focus and is now achievable. This view will unlock capabilities to deliver precision interventions to learners, reduce hurdles around understanding learner context as they transition between institutions, and foster an ecosystem of solution provider innovation.

Finally, expanding the number of states that have implemented P-20W datasets that facilitate sharing of data at scale with practitioners, researchers, institutions and parents and teachers will start to answer the questions around what works in education.

As the workforce ages and retirement numbers increase, demand for new labor has outpaced supply – particularly for positions in public health and safety (e.g. health care), producing and selling essential products (e.g. cashiers, skilled laborers), and infrastructure support (e.g. maintenance workers, engineers).

As the economy shifts to focus on growth, hundreds of billions of dollars is set to be invested into transportation, electrical, broadband, and water service, school and medical buildings, and clean energy production, among other areas, but one question looms large: who will fill these jobs?

Forward-thinking institutions connect with the labor market, tracking local and national job trends and engaging with employers to facilitate student placement. The most innovative schools create seamless paths to a credential of value, bolstered by employer partnerships and supported with comprehensive policies that improve faculty engagement and empower graduates with an evolving skill set that meets the needs of a shifting economy.

Quanta Services, one of the largest infrastructure construction companies in North America, was feeling the labor force shortage, firsthand, and knew that to grow their businesses, they needed candidates that could jump in and learn quickly – candidates who were field ready, with an understanding of the industry and with knowledge of key safety requirements.

Quanta wanted to proactively invest in their future and understood that increasing awareness about industry opportunity during university years could be a key to success. They reached out locally, to nearby Sam Houston State University (SHSU). In SHSU they found an institution that has supported working students for over 140 years and offered an Engineering Technology Degree with concentrations in both construction and safety management. Quanta also found an administration eager to increase recruitment and placement of minority students.

The initial investment was simple: it started with the donation of a $3 million endowment that was used to supplement two new professorship chairs and purchase additional lab equipment.

A&M engaged to design a workforce development program, bringing a team experienced in both education and industry. A&M created a custom approach to design, develop and support a long-term workforce development program between the university and its sponsor.

The program was developed and deployed in three phases over the course of a single year. Creating the program was a collaborative effort. Working alongside SHSU professors and Quanta Leaders, the A&M team provided expert advice and program management support. They interviewed Quanta leaders, worked with SHSU professors to prioritize opportunities for curricula enhancement, created supplemental curricula, designed and launched an internship program, and coordinated on-campus brand awareness events.

The Quanta-SHSU workforce development program, Powering Great Minds, is still going strong. A&M’s work was critical in launching key elements of the program to:

1. Enhance existing curricula: Six classes were enhanced to include field-specific competencies. Spanning utility industry exposure, industry technology, and field supervision, SHSU professors and A&M consultants determined where, how and what content could be included across the four-year degree program.
2. Create an immersive experience: Leveraging Quanta’s state of the art, 2,500-acre training facility, the A&M team created a custom 40-hour “mini-mester” to provide an off-campus, field-focused course. Instructed by an SHSU professor, the interactive case-study is supported by Quanta Services professionals and leaders, each actively working in electrical, pipeline, telecom or environmental services. The week-long course instructs and tests the end-to-end job responsibilities of construction and safety management. The course is incredibly popular and has been limited to 15-20 students each year since its inaugural offering in the spring of 2017.
3. Launch a structured internship program: Previously an uncoordinated effort, the internship program combined “now-term” business needs with qualified candidates from SHSU. Launched in the summer of 2017, the program is Quanta’s number one recruitment program for construction management.
4. On campus brand recognition: Beginning with the program, A&M helped Quanta increase its presence on campus including on-campus speakers, job fairs, and deploying unique Quanta-SHSU partnership branding. Speaking engagements are very well attended – the program is a proud achievement that both SHSU and Quanta advertise.

Like Quanta, employers should be thinking creatively about their workforce needs and hiring pipeline. Likewise, educational institutions should consider how they can partner with employers and connect to hiring pipelines to better serve their students. Key questions each organization type can ask include:

Employers:

• What knowledge and skills are critical to your company’s growth?
• Where are you finding these employees?
• Are you spending money on outsourced recruiters or job boards?
• How are you investing in your future employees and therefore the future of your company?

Educators:

• Who is hiring your students?
• Are you closely connected with these companies and industries?
• Is there a connection through your alumni network to explore a workforce partnership?
• Is there a way to share valuable information with your students by partnering with market leaders?

Designing an effective workforce development program, like Quanta did with SHSU, requires commitment. It takes time, cooperation, an understanding of evolving economic needs, buy-in from all impacted and invested parties and coordination. But the reward is that these creative partnerships can result in lasting, powerful outcomes – for individuals, for communities, for companies and for the economy.

So, what if it’s not about the next, better, silver bullet solution, but about change itself and how easily institutions are able to experiment and adapt to support student success? What if innovation to transform instruction and student development was as robust within an institution as it is in the commercial marketplace that delivers products to that institution? What if instructors, administrators and students on any given college campus were both disciplined and empowered to adjust knowledge sharing, not just by tweaking a syllabus but by reflecting on their performance and then reorganizing content, delivery, connections, supports and contributions to improve learning outcomes?

This happens today in exceptional cases, but is not yet standard practice. Select institutions supported by, for example, visionary leadership or extensive digital capabilities, are well ahead of the rest of a very large pack. What would be better is to have practices and capabilities that are widespread, so that all manner of innovation and advances in education could come from diverse and unexpected places.

There are a number of trends in education – some new and some that have been around for a long time – that would indicate that this ability for institutions to transform should be taking a firmer hold. We’ve just witnessed a radical reshuffling of the education experience and our expectations, as wrought by a global pandemic. The urgency to realize equity is right in front of us. Digital capabilities get better every day. And the volume is turning up on discussions about the value of increasingly expensive college degrees.

Our client, a large foundation, has been thinking a lot about innovation and improved outcomes in higher education and engaged A&M on a number of projects to better understand and support institutions’ ability to reflect, identify, develop and test solutions to improve student success. The goal wasn’t a new product or service that everyone should buy, but instead it was a discipline of continuous improvement and innovation that is embedded in each institution, especially those who serve traditionally excluded populations.

One part of the engagement was designed to help institutions better understand their proficiency in a handful of operational capabilities that are needed for student success – things like leadership, strategic finance, technology and digital supports, institutional research and data use, etc. Working with the client and a handful of partners on a set of rubrics, the A&M team helped to design and develop a capability assessment for campus leadership teams. The results of the assessment are intended to guide conversations among these leaders around performance and improvement for student success.

Reflecting on performance, having constructive conversations about opportunities, and creating a forum for innovative ideas are a part of building muscle around change and continuous innovation. So, too, is just trying things. For this reason, our work was deliberately structured with partners and participating campuses in an iterative, “develop and test” approach. No one showed up with the silver bullet solution and asked for a five year contract. Instead, we worked with campuses and their partners to try multiple versions of the assessment, and with each round of testing, they elevated their ability to try a “rough draft,” tailor a new “product” and introduce it into practice.

This ability to draw a box around a practice or activity and recognize it as an innovation that can be further developed and tested – something that has a product lifecycle – isn’t always intuitive. Of course, institutions create new courses all the time and those are products / services. But so is a newly bundled set of advisory services, or a repeatable practice to incorporate student success measures into financial planning, or a set of student dashboards for faculty. Our client and our A&M team continue to focus on building institutional capacity for reflection and change, helping institutions unlock their own innovation for student success. This approach to enabling change within colleges and universities to support student success is rooted in an assumption that these institutions are in a privileged position to understand student needs and engage with students to reflect on, and develop, solutions that fit, and fix, their learning outcomes.