More than 150 L.A. Compact partners joined UNITE-LA and SoCal Grantmakers for our Data to Action event on Feb. 24 to officially launch the L.A. Compact Charting Progress Dashboard and to discuss new data and trends in education and workforce outcomes and what the path forward looks like for our cradle-to-career systems amid COVID-19 and persistent, systemic racism. The event featured a distinguished panel with the region's key systems leaders, including UNITE-LA board members Chancellor Francisco Rodriguez (LACCD), Dr. Manuel Pastor (USC), and Bill Allen (LAEDC), as well as LAUSD Board President Kelly Gonez and First 5 LA's Dr. Kimberly Hall.

What gets measured matters. The L.A. Compact's Charting Progress Dashboard is a powerful resource for making data-informed decisions—with metrics and accountability—as we plan for an inclusive economic recovery and a thriving region.

Since 2008, the L.A. Compact has been tracking cradle-to-career indicators in a series of written reports to measure progress towards our five collective goals. Doing so has led to mutual accountability for student success among L.A. Compact partners. Our new, online Charting Progress dashboard will provide a more accurate picture of how children and youth are doing in the region, from cradle-to-career. It provides an expanded set of cradle-to-career indicators and greater disaggregation by race and ethnicity.

We invite you to periodically visit and explore the dashboard to see what new data are available and to use these indicators to help drive innovation and increase impact across the systems that affect the lives of children and youth in our region.

"Our children often encounter the health care system, school system, early learning system and a variety of public systems, but often times they don't receive services in a way that is really responsive to their needs," said Kimberly Hall, Chief Data Officer, First 5 LA.

Countless hours went into collecting, organizing and aggregating data from multiple public and non-public sources to track progress over time. We thank the L.A. Compact Data Workgroup and other Compact partners, who helped us identify and obtain optimal indicators. The Charting Progress dashboard will guide our efforts for long-term systemic change and drive public discourse and alignment across systems.

If you have any questions and/or suggestions, please contact Dr. Lisa Catanzarite, Vice President, Research and Evaluation, at [email protected].

For general inquiries regarding the L.A. Compact's cradle-to-career collective impact effort, please contact Ariana Oliva at [email protected].