The conversation about education and workforce data moves fast: new reports, new crises, new debates. But the issues that determine whether data actually improves students’ lives don’t change nearly as often as the headlines suggest. Back to Basics is DQC’s ongoing series on the fundamentals: the data policies, practices, and principles that have always mattered, and still do. Each post steps back from the moment to explain what’s really at stake—and why getting it right is worth the sustained effort. This post is the Data is About People installment of Back to Basics, read the other posts in this series here.
Over the past two decades, DQC’s mission has remained constant: to ensure that data works for people. Behind every data point is an individual who is learning and growing in pre-K to be prepared for kindergarten, understanding how their interests align with potential pathways, pursuing a postsecondary credential, or building skills to transition into a new career. Data reflects a series of decisions made by people. And those decisions affect the story that data tells, what it captures, and how it can and should be used to inform decisionmaking. Access to data should never be a barrier to supporting individuals as they navigate their journeys through education and into the workforce.
Data is a valuable tool to guide decisionmaking and support individuals. For decades, states have been investing in statewide longitudinal data systems (SLDSs) that securely connect individual-level P–20W data over time from early childhood, K–12, postsecondary, and workforce. These systems are an indispensable tool for making informed decisions. DQC’s infographic, “Grace’s Path to Success,” highlights how students and their families can use data to make informed decisions about needed skills, job options, and available postsecondary programs to chart their course into high-quality, in-demand careers.
Providing access to that information to families like Grace’s depends on more than technology. It depends on trust in how data is collected and used—and that trust depends on clear leadership and accountability. Cross-agency data governance encompasses the policies, processes, and leadership structures that guide how data shared between state agencies is connected, secured, accessed, and used. It establishes clear leadership and accountability for how data decisions are made. With that structure in place, states can transparently make steady progress toward state goals, keep those goals consistent as leadership changes, and build trust in data with the public along the way. That is why 12 states (as of May 2026) have codified cross-agency data governance in state law.
As states set ambitious education and workforce goals, the questions people bring to state data will only grow. Policymakers can make sure SLDSs are ready to answer them by codifying cross-agency data governance in state law. The measure of that work’s success is not the data system itself but whether the next student like Grace can find what she needs to take her next step.
