DATA-DRIVEN WORK
Chattanooga 2.0 holds data at the forefront of all cradle-to-career strategies and initiatives and our partners should use this data dashboard to both inform and strengthen their work.
Led by our Data Council, comprehensive, aligned, and timely collection and reporting of data across early care, education, and youth services can be used to better inform resource allocation and community planning, provide disaggregated data on participant demographics and workforce composition, and to measure progress and outcomes.
Data collection and analysis can help social sector agencies identify meaningful trends across populations. Utilizing the below data can also help programs hone in on narrowly defined geographic areas and subgroups to more clearly understand the unique challenges and resources in each community.
We believe in making data and information easily digestible and widely shared among community leaders, officials, and residents to inform evidence-based policy-making.
Contributing indicators are the variables that will have a direct impact on the core goal we are attempting to achieve. For example, the number of students enrolling in college or credentialing courses directly impacts the number of students who will attain postsecondary success. Fewer students enrolling would indicate that fewer students will graduate. Therefore, postsecondary enrollment is a contributing indicator for postsecondary completion.
Contextual indicators are quantifiable variables which we will use to help describe and measure the wider cradle-to-career system. These indicators give a picture of how the community is doing overall. For example, if the unemployment rate is at an all-time high, this might indicate that the goal of obtaining a thriving wage job is harder to achieve and therefore will be lower.