Next Step: Using Longitudinal Data Systems to Improve Student Success

Faced with the need to create a competitive workforce and dramatically improve the quality of the country's education system, states have embraced an aggressive policy agenda to better prepare students for postsecondary education and careers. States have made enormous progress over the past three years in developing robust student-level longitudinal data systems that can track individual students from pre-k into postsecondary education. There are 10 essential elements in creating a highly-effective longitudinal data system and there are 10 actions that states must take to ensure the effective use of that data.