Minnesota SLEDS

July 10, 2014 - With more jobs expected to require some form of postsecondary attainment, information on a new state website is now available to help students and families guide their education.

For example, consumers can learn how many students at public Minnesota high schools are prepared for postsecondary education, and if they go, whether or not they finish. Data such as this will play a key role in informing Minnesotans about how students are doing and direct efforts to open up postsecondary opportunities for everyone.

The information is made available by the Minnesota Statewide Longitudinal Education Data System (SLEDS) mobile analytics site. Consumers can now view data about student progress and pathways from secondary education into postsecondary education in an easy to use format. Users can create customized displays by selecting specific graduation years, high schools and districts.

“The interactive reporting of the new SLEDS site offers an opportunity for users to explore the data that is the most meaningful to them,” said Larry Pogemiller, Commissioner of the Office of Higher Education. “This information is aimed at helping educators and policymakers make informed decisions about policy and funding.”

SLEDS is a joint effort from Minnesota’s Office of Higher Education (OHE), the Departments of Education (MDE) and the Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED). The new SLEDS site was created using Mobile First Analytics standards, making the site user friendly on all mobile devices and accessible to all. This is the first release of the site; users can expect new reports and features in a second release to be available in December 2014.

“Together we are working to ensure every student has the opportunity to succeed in life after high school. This new system and data mining tool will inform our continuous improvement, accountability, research, evaluation and decision making in the future,” Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius said.

“As Minnesota’s economy continues to grow, it is crucial that we help students identify pathways into post-secondary options and align our workforce with jobs that are in demand,” said DEED Commissioner Katie Clark Sieben. “SLEDS is the result of state agencies working together to link data across sectors, and will be important for our work well into the future.”

SLEDS brings together data from education and workforce to identify viable pathways for individuals in achieving successful outcomes in education and work. It will also inform decisions to support and improve education and workforce policy, helping to create a more seamless education and workforce system for all Minnesotans.

This is the third SLEDS data product for 2014. The two prior products include the Graduate Outcomes data tool from the Department of Employment and Economic Development and Getting Prepared 2014, a report on developmental education in Minnesota by the Office of Higher Education.

To access the mobile analytics site, visit sleds.mn.gov

Feedback on the mobile analytics site is welcome; please share your reaction or ideas for improvement with sleds.support@state.mn.us. For more information, contact Sandy Connolly at 651-259-3902 or by email at sandy.connolly@state.mn.us

Data Comparison

Minnesota public high school graduate data includes approximately 500,000 graduate records from 2007 to 2013 with a “Status End” code (“8” or “9”). These data are not the same student cohort counts used by the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) to calculate the graduation rate. For example, a student graduating from high school in 2011 may be a member of a different MDE graduation rate cohort (2009, 2010 or 2011) depending on whether they took 4, 5 or 6 years to graduate.

Why don’t student counts match? SLEDS included data from multiple sources which may lead to different counts reported here and elsewhere. The differences in counts among sources represent a small percentage of overall students. Connecting data across K-12 and college systems required rigorous methods to match a K-12 student as the same student enrolled in college.

Reasons why student counts differ:

• Graduation Data: A student’s high school graduation information can differ between data systems. For example, one student was reported as graduated from two high schools in two different years.
• Personal Information: If a student’s personal information -- first name, last name or date of birth -- differed between college and high school records, SLEDS did not link the student.
• No Data Found: Some K-12 students could not be located in the higher education data.