Clearinghouse’s Michele Gralak Describes How StudentTracker Helps Schools and Districts Put Data to Work for Success

Richard Whitmire author of several books, most recently “The B.A. Breakthrough: How Ending Diploma Disparities Can Change the Face of America,” recently wrote an article for The 74, an education media outlet, that says school districts assume that almost all their graduates will enroll and/or succeed in college.

But the numbers tell a different story, and there’s only one source for the data: the National Student Clearinghouse.

In the article, Clearinghouse Business Analyst Michele Gralak describes how the Clearinghouse can help any school district or education nonprofit learn about their actual college graduation rates for their alumni and steps to boost those rates.

One advantage for districts is that they can compare outcomes for their students to the students we research for our annual Benchmarks analysis, which is free and available to everyone. But if you have StudentTracker^® data, you can determine, for example, how your male students, or female Hispanic students, for example, fare compared with this national sample.

Gralak addresses numerous questions, such as:

• Why do high school principals and college counselors want data?
• Doesn’t the federal Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System give high school college counselors all the information they need to know about colleges?
• What is the Clearinghouse doing to make these reports more user-friendly for school districts that lack data experts?
• Don’t most traditional school districts resist taking on postsecondary success as one of their missions?

Read the story to discover how the Clearinghouse can help your school district or nonprofit education organization fulfill its mission.

“One advantage for districts is that they can compare outcomes for their students to the students we research for our annual Benchmarks analysis, which is free and available to everyone.”

Michele Gralak
Clearinghouse Business Analyst

Additional Resources:

• Learn more about StudentTracker for High Schools

• Read how high schools use StudentTracker