Riverside County Improves Students’ Postsecondary Outcomes with Transcript Analysis and StudentTracker for High Schools
Gil Compton of Riverside County Office of Education Shows Us How
In this second part of a four-part series, Gil Compton, director of college and career readiness, education services for the Riverside County Office of Education, further describes how Riverside County uses StudentTracker® for High Schools to improve students’ postsecondary outcomes.
“We use the enrollment data provided to us by the National Student Clearinghouse, and we break it down very differently,” Compton said.
Riverside County uses StudentTracker data to perform transcript analysis to study student pathways. For example, the county reviews a high school with 3,000 students, 525 courses, and more than 100 teachers and studies every student’s transcript, maps their journey through high school and plots out which of those students were accepted to college, and where they enrolled.
The Clearinghouse data shows the enrollment information, and Riverside supercharges the data by looking back over the high school careers of students who succeeded in college to discover what they did, what classes they took, what grades they earned, what activities they did, and more.
School leaders then use the results of the transcript analysis to, as Compton put it, “replicate the good transcripts, and try to decrease the bad transcripts.”
The power of transcript analysis has increased over the years, and Compton and his colleagues learned more about how their graduates were faring in college. “We go back, and we do it again, and again, and again,” he said.
Using transcript analysis, the Riverside County Office of Education talks with their students about their pathways through high school and to college, whether to a two-year or four-year institution. With smart data analysis, Riverside County can change the trajectory of students across a school or district for years to come.
The data and the analysis are a difference maker for Riverside County, which stretches across 23 school districts. The county’s 103 traditional and alternative high schools serve more than 425,000 students, 63 percent of whom are economically disadvantaged, and 21 percent of whom are English learners.
To learn how to supercharge your school or district, contact your Clearinghouse Regional Director to discuss.
With smart data analysis, Riverside County can change the trajectory of students across a school or district for years to come. The data and the analysis are a difference maker for Riverside County, which stretches across 23 school districts.
