L.A. Compact Data Walk engages Compact member to collectively analyze student progress

UNITE-LA released its third and most comprehensive L.A. Compact measures report, entitled “Charting Progress Toward L.A. Compact Goals.”  This report serves as a tool for the community and for L.A. Compact partners to better align and improve our collective impact efforts.

To roll out the report and bring attention to recent trends for our students and youth, UNITE-LA held its first L.A. Compact Data Walk on Dec. 12, 2016.  At this event, members of the Compact’s 14 workgroups, plus other community leaders, engaged with data by visiting poster stations displaying select charts from the report.  Small-group discussions at each poster station were facilitated by experts from the L.A. Compact Data Workgroup (a cross-sector working group of leading data, research, and evaluation professionals from key L.A. institutions).  (See twitter feed of the December 12 Data Walk).

The L.A. Compact is a collaborative of Los Angeles’ leading education, government, labor, business, and non-profit institutions, convened by UNITE-LA.  The Compact was born in 2008, out of a shared belief that no one agency could singlehandedly solve the complex, large-scale education and workforce readiness problems facing our region.  Today, 23 Los Angeles leaders have signed the L.A. Compact’s collective commitment to transform regional outcomes from cradle to career. Signatories have pledged to put the interests of students first; to work together in support of three ambitious, systemic goals; and to regularly measure the progress of our youth:

GOAL 1:  All students graduate from high school

GOAL 2:  All students have access to and are prepared for success in college

GOAL 3:  All students have access to pathways to sustainable jobs and careers

Improving student outcomes at scale requires collective impact: the commitment to solve complex social problems by a coalition of actors from different sectors. Achieving the Compact’s ambitious goals necessitates innovative and sustained collaboration that cuts across typical bureaucratic silos. We are committed to the development, analysis, and distribution of shared metrics of youth educational and workforce success.  Shared measurement is essential to maintaining the Compact’s forward-moving agenda.  Tracking youth success in the Los Angeles metropolis is challenging.  However, attention to specific markers of youth achievement is critical to evaluating our efforts and guiding the future decisions of the Los Angeles leaders of the L.A. Compact.

UNITE-LA recently published our most comprehensive measures report, Charting Progress Toward L.A. Compact Goals, which tracks cradle-to-career outcomes in the Los Angeles region. The 50-page report includes 40 charts with the latest-available and longitudinal data on a range of relevant indicators for Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), L.A. county, and California, selectively disaggregated by race/ethnicity (e.g., 3^rd grade reading proficiency; 8^th grade math proficiency; 11^th grade college readiness; suspensions; dropout and graduation rates; eligibility for UC/CSU enrollment; college attendance; youth disconnection; youth employment and unemployment).  Download the Executive Summary of Charting Progress or the complete Measures Report here.

From 2009-15, LAUSD showed substantial progress on a number of indicators, including most notably the high school graduation rate, which increased from just over half of all students to two-thirds in the past five years. This impressive progress occurred despite substantial budget cuts in public education wrought by the most severe economic recession since the Great Depression. The results discussed here are inspiring: Los Angeles public school students have made incredible gains. At the same time, youth disconnection and unemployment rates have become grievous.  We have a long way to go to bridge the region’s education and employment gaps, particularly for poor and minority youth, who make up the vast majority of Los Angeles’ next generation.

Charting Progress monitors L.A. cradle-to-career performance from 2009-15, tracks advancement towards the Compact’s agreed-upon goals, and serves as a tool for partners to learn what is working and not working in the region. As the L.A. Compact’s shared measurement tool, the report supports greater alignment among partner organizations, influences collaborative problem solving, and serves as the foundation for continuous improvement of the Compact’s collective impact initiatives. It serves as a transparency and accountability document, clearly laying out our headway and challenges.  Finally, the Charting Progress report sustains commitment and trust among the L.A. Compact partners. The L.A. Compact Data Walk was leveraged as an opportunity for cross-sector Compact partners to collaboratively analyze and discuss  the latest data tracking progress on the Compact’s goals.