Data Collaboration in New York City: The Challenges of Linking High School and Post-Secondary Data

Posted by on July 02, 2012

Better together

New York City has the largest urban school system in the country, the largest public university system, and a large overlap of students between the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) and the City University of New York (CUNY). By collaborating with CUNY and matching CUNY and National Student Clearinghouse StudentTracker data, NYCDOE was able to create a set of metrics to classify characteristics of NYCDOE student graduates who enrolled in college, then analyze their college trajectories and outcomes, and share these findings with schools. NYCDOE also developed new accountability metrics to identify and refine the kinds of support that schools must provide to prepare students for college. In addition, NYCDOE developed and added college-ready metrics to New York City’s accountability system, which complements the state’s NCLB accountability system. In collaborating, NYCDOE and CUNY learned several things: a core set of researchers within and across institutions saves time and avoids duplication; institutions must communicate clearly about data exchange and hold each other accountable for timelines; differences in definitions of populations of interest and cohorts should be clarified and accounted for in findings; careful reconciliation of discrepancies allows collaborations with other agencies/sources of post-secondary data; and budgeting for the cost of collaboration is critical.

See the report: http://annenberginstitute.org/publication/data-collaboration-new-york-city-challenges-linking-high-school-and-post-secondary-data