National Academy Foundation Partners with ConnectEDU to Measure Student Success with Real-Time Data

NEW YORK, Oct. 2, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Academy Foundation (NAF) is partnering with ConnectEDU to provide a real-time data system for tracking students' college and career readiness. The platform, which includes college and career planning tools, comprehensive data warehouse capabilities, student level data aggregation, and customized, real-time progress reporting, will support NAF's goal of graduating 100,000 college- and career-ready students by 2020. 

The college and career readiness platform is an ambitious effort to pull disparate, student level data from a variety of sources – such as state, district and NAF data warehouses – to compare NAF academy and non-academy students. The data will also be used to compare academies' specific implementation of the NAF model, in aggregate allowing for customized student performance analysis by school and district administrators.  The real-time reports will measure student achievement, monitor progress, drive targeted interventions, and provide a deepened understanding of the key components that drive success in the NAF model.  Through the college and career readiness platform, NAF as well as school and district administrators, will be able to better understand what is working and what can be improved around preparing students for college and careers while also tracking student progress and success to inform timely interventions.

In partnership with ConnectEDU, NAF has already analyzed data on 15,531 NAF students against their peers from districts including Miami-Dade, NYC, Broward, San Francisco, Porterville, Rochester, Waco, and Pinellas to measure program effectiveness and student success. Preliminary findings show that compared to non-NAF students NAF students performed better in the areas of engagement and academic progress, and meeting the required benchmarks to graduate high school college and career ready.  NAF has now signed on 23 school districts to this effort, including 201 academies representing 30,000 NAF students. NAF is the first organization to bring together student performance data from this many districts.

"Through an integrated data collection and analysis system like this, we will be able to focus on improving the quality of our academies based on student outcomes," says Verna Martin, Oklahoma City Public Schools, "with NAF's support, we can ensure that we are providing students with the high quality education and college and career preparation they deserve."

ConnectEDU's college and career readiness platform provides students with the necessary tools to navigate the education, career and financial planning process.  By collecting and tracking real-time student performance data, critical insights for students and stakeholders are unlocked. The platforms data capabilities allow performance to be analyzed at the student, academy, student cohort, school, district, state, and national levels. ConnectEDU's proprietary data aggregation and comparison capabilities enable the analysis and reporting of program effectiveness to key stakeholders as well as informing strategic planning and program design initiatives.

About National Academy Foundation
The National Academy Foundation (NAF) is an acclaimed network of career-themed academies that open doors for underserved high school students to viable careers. For 30 years, NAF has refined a proven model that provides young people access to industry-specific curricula, work-based learning experiences, and relationships with business professionals.  NAF academies focus on one of five career themes: finance, hospitality & tourism, information technology, engineering, and health sciences. Employees of more than 2,500 companies volunteer in classrooms, act as mentors, engage NAF students in paid internships, and serve on local advisory boards. During the 2011-12 school year, 500 NAF academies served 60,000 students across 39 states, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. In 2011 NAF academies reported that 97% of their seniors graduated, demonstrating the effectiveness this effort.

About ConnectEDU (www.connectedu.com)
ConnectEDU is a technology company, founded and grounded in education, committed to transitioning 21st Century Learners on their pathways from school to college to career, helping them realize their potential, achieve a secure financial future, and ultimately connect to life's possibilities. ConnectEDU was created in 2002, by Craig Powell, an entrepreneur with a passion for ensuring that all students have access to the expertise needed to maximize their educational potential. Today, ConnectEDU is the world's largest education network, with nearly 20 million registered learners, over 4,000 educational institutions, and 130,000 employers.

SOURCE ConnectEDU