Prototype framework development

In June 2009, WICHE and its partners met with managers of the K-12 education, postsecondary education, and workforce data systems in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Hawaii. At that meeting, we began a discussion about how a multi-state data exchange might be organized and governed. Our goal was to create a framework for a Human Capital Development Data System that would enable states to better understand the stock and flows of human capital into and through their education systems and into the workforce without having that information compromised by mobility across state lines. With federal stimulus money earmarked for state longitudinal data system development (see http://nces.ed.gov/programs/slds/grant_information.asp for the federal Request for Applications), there is tremendous energy across the country. But it is essential for future analytical capacity that there not be 50 (or more) different designs, and a prototype framework could provide a useful model for how such a data exchange might work.

Brian Prescott and Peter Ewell wrote A Framework for a Multi-State Human Capital Development Data System describing the results of WICHE and its partners’ work on this topic.