Announcement: New data dashboard tracks Washington's education attainment progress

WSAC’s new dashboard is an equity-focused data hub that helps track Washington’s progress toward increasing educational attainment.

The Washington Student Achievement Council (WSAC) has developed a new data dashboard aligned with its Strategic Action Plan (SAP). The dashboard captures the state’s current status and recent progress on education indicators aligned with WSAC’s four-part strategic framework: Affordability, Enrollment, Student Supports, and Completion.

The SAP Dashboard is designed as a resource for state and community leaders, educators, and interested members of the public who share a commitment to increasing opportunity for all Washington residents. The agency envisions the holistic data hub as a powerful tool that informs policymaking and supports state and local initiatives that can boost postsecondary attainment. 

Not only does the SAP Dashboard present data at the state level, but it includes breakouts by race/ethnicity, gender, and region. These detailed, disaggregated data bring equity to the forefront and allow users to explore outcomes for different student populations of interest.

The data included in the SAP Dashboard originate from a variety of sources, including from state partners like the Education Research and Data Center (ERDC) and Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) and national sources like the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) and the U.S. Census Bureau. Taken together, these data help tell the story of the current state of higher education in Washington. WSAC staff and council members will continue to update and enhance the dashboard with additional data when available.

Over the next few weeks, WSAC will release a series of Research Digest posts that will highlight interesting data insights and takeaways from the dashboard. The goal of the series is to communicate and interpret data from the SAP Dashboard in a brief and informal manner to surface important education issues in the state. The Research Digest will be sent by email and available on the dashboard in the future.

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