NGA Gives States a Road Map for Better Student Data Dashboards

A new program facilitated by the National Governors Association (NGA) aims to help state leaders build data dashboards that track student success from early childhood through entering the workforce.

The initiative stems from the “Let’s Get Ready!” road map released by Colorado Gov. Jared Polis during his tenure as NGA chair in 2024, according to a news release last week. Led by a bipartisan group of seven states and territories — American Samoa, Colorado, Delaware, Louisiana, Maryland, North Dakota and Oregon — the project, which officially began this month, seeks to move state accountability systems away from relying primarily on standardized test scores. Governors will receive 18 months of technical assistance to help define, measure and publicize indicators of student readiness, the release said.

REDEFINING 'READINESS'

The NGA’s framework identifies four essential pillars of readiness: academic foundations, workforce preparedness, civic engagement and lifelong well-being. According to the NGA, traditional metrics like high school diplomas and math or literacy scores "only scratch the surface" of what students need to thrive in a modern economy.

“For too long, our definition of ‘readiness’ has been narrowly focused on basic academic indicators,” Gov. Polis noted in a letter about the road map initiative. He described the project as a "call for governors to demand better," arguing that as the largest funders of education, states have a "responsibility to drive innovation within our systems" and "bolster our capacity to measure what works and what doesn’t."

The NGA wants states to design new dashboards to track durable skills like critical thinking, collaboration and communication, and longitudinal outcomes collected over extended periods of time. This will require a significant technical lift, as states must bridge gaps between K-12 student information systems, higher education records and Department of Labor wage data, Polis wrote in his letter.

BRIDGING DATA SILOS

According to the NGA's executive summary of the project, the primary objective of the Policy Academy, the entity providing governors with technical assistance to build data dashboards, is to "eliminate government silos that impede progress" and enable states to track student development across different life stages. To achieve this, participating states will focus on enhancing statewide longitudinal data systems to ensure data can follow students from early childhood into their careers.

The NGA's road map stresses that governors are "singularly positioned to break down the silos that get in the way of tracking progress and hamper a coherent experience for students." For ed-tech vendors and IT administrators, this push for interoperability may create a growing demand for platforms that can aggregate data from various state agencies into a single, public-facing interface.

FROM DATA TO ACTION

Beyond simple transparency, the NGA's announcement said it intends these dashboards to serve as strategic "change management" tools. Thus, by identifying where students are falling behind in real time — rather than waiting for annual testing cycles — governors can, in theory, advocate for shifting resources to programs that demonstrate higher returns on investment.

While the initiative emphasizes economic competitiveness, it also acknowledges the necessity of personal development to combat broader social challenges. The NGA's road map notes that the framework is designed to address growing "disengagement from community and civic life and a pandemic of loneliness and isolation," by ensuring schools support the "lifelong well-being" of every student.