High school is a critical point of transition for students and their families, and making the right decisions requires clear, timely, and meaningful information. Yet, too often, the data that states provide through their state report cards falls short of providing a full picture that can effectively guide decisionmaking. In this blog post, Angela Perry and Andrew Schmitz explore why state report cards are missing the mark in meeting the needs of students, families, and school leaders—and make the case for more accessible, actionable, and complete information that can truly support student success. Angela is DQC’s Senior Advisor, Postsecondary and Workforce Pathways, and has experience at DQC analyzing state report cards and advocating for best practices. Andrew is Senior Managing Director of System Impact at OneGoal, where he sets the vision and manages the implementation of different services and products that build leadership capacity to strengthen postsecondary practices and systems.
Students and their families need clear information in order to plan for high school and make decisions about what postsecondary options to pursue. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) mandates that states create public reports, known as “report cards,” to share information about school performance and show how schools are serving students. These reports are intended to support students and families with the data they need to make informed decisions and ensure school accountability.
The Data Quality Campaign (DQC) reviewed state report cards for nearly a decade and found that, despite some progress, report cards consistently fall short of their intended purposes. Other analyses have also found state report cards lacking in transparency and usability, with a majority receiving a “C” or worse. Researchers have found that report cards are difficult to understand, both because of the way information is presented and because many are written in overly technical language. And interviews that DQC conducted with parents—the primary audience that these report cards are meant to serve—found that state report cards simply are not meeting their needs.
While ESSA specifies that certain indicators must be included in the state report cards, the information that states provide is frequently outdated, overly simplified, or difficult to understand. This limits the usefulness of report cards for students and families. And it’s not just students and families. School and district leaders often do not rely on report cards to drive continuous improvement, leading to a disconnect between a state’s accountability system and the metrics that system leaders regularly use to inform their vision, strategy, and actions. This is particularly problematic when trying to understand how high school choices impact future postsecondary access, completion, and career outcomes.
High School Students, Families, and Leaders Need Better Information
DQC performed a deep dive into the data on participation in college and career readiness indicators and activities in state report cards in 2022 and found that most states still don’t include clear or comprehensive information about student outcomes after high school. And even when data is there, how it’s presented can pose challenges:
- Data Timeliness: Many reports contain data that is more than a year old by the time the report comes out. For example, states that rely on National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) data often face reporting delays. As discussed in The 74, this lag makes it difficult for school and district leaders to use the information to guide decisions or target support in real-time. According to a survey of principals on how they use data to drive improvement, nearly one-third of school leaders reported that they did not use postsecondary enrollment data during the 2023–2024 school year.
- Indicator Complexity: Some states combine various college and career readiness measures into a single data point, called a “composite indicator.” While there can be uses for a composite indicator, too many state report cards contain overly complex and hard-to-find formulas for how this indicator is calculated and often fail to show the data separately, by indicator. This prevents families from reviewing information on individual programs or understanding the outcomes of different college and career readiness pathways. It can also be difficult for local leaders to evaluate school performance or outcomes from college and career readiness platforms.
- Limited Rigor: Certain indicators merely report student participation in activities, such as enrolling in dual enrollment programs or early postsecondary opportunity (EPSO) courses. Reporting participation does not show whether students demonstrated competency and mastery, or whether those experiences meaningfully prepared students for success. This can create an overly simple and misleading picture of student readiness. It also incentivizes educators to “check the box” over incentivizing holistic, authentic, and well-rounded achievement.
When data is outdated, overly simple, or difficult to interpret, it fails to support students in their decisionmaking or schools in making meaningful improvements. High-level, annual data does not provide education leaders with the necessary insights for timely decisionmaking and student support.
Bright Spots: States Enhancing Report Card Quality
Several states are demonstrating progress in providing valuable postsecondary and career outcome data:
- Michigan shares data on graduation rates, postsecondary enrollment, and long-term persistence and completion. The report card links to additional tools to help students and families explore their options.
- New Jersey reports on two- and four-year college enrollment, military enlistment, and workforce entry, including apprenticeships. It also includes data on high school experiences like CTE, dual enrollment, and advanced coursework.
- North Dakota connects families to resources on postsecondary pathways, workforce outcomes, job trends, and workforce needs. Interactive visuals show how students move into careers based on their field of study.
- Georgia shares data on trends associated with the completion of different pathways and disaggregates its composite metric to show outcomes from different programs.
These states demonstrate that, through thoughtful design and a commitment to transparency, report cards can be significantly improved to offer families and education leaders more meaningful insight into student outcomes.
As states prepare to update their report cards, it is crucial to advocate for enhanced data quality, clarity, and accessibility. Students and school leaders deserve data that empowers, rather than hinders, their pursuit of postsecondary and career success.
