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As a State CTE leader, you’re responsible for ensuring that essential information is properly collected, stored, and communicated to relevant agencies. However, many educators find data management difficult and time-consuming.
Below, you’ll discover five of the most common problems associated with CTE data management.
When left unaddressed, these issues can become overwhelming. But with the right system in place, you can overcome these challenges and put CTE at the Forefront.
1. Manual Data Entry
Tracking data manually comes with a high chance of error. When you enter data by hand, you may end up double-checking your work and even entering the same data multiple times!
This inefficient process costs time and often leads to inaccurate reports.
2. Difficulty Managing Spreadsheet Data
Properly dealing with spreadsheet data is easier said than done. Using spreadsheets requires correctly setting up different fields and conditional formats. Without proper formatting, even the best-designed spreadsheet can become a confusing mess.
Importing and exporting data can lead to more issues, making data analysis difficult.
Finally, different team members may have separate documents, challenging your efforts to keep a clean data set.
3. Lack of Data Transparency and Insight
Especially when records are kept in various places, it’s common for CTE teams not to have an authoritative database to make critical decisions. Without data transparency, administrators are forced to fill in gaps or even resort to guesswork.
When you don’t have a full picture of what is going on in your CTE program, the insight you can gain from analyzing data is limited. Programs that lack confidence in their data risk falling behind in obtaining funding and complying with regulations.
4. Inability to Track Performance Across Multiple Schools
States with a large volume of CTE offerings often struggle with tracking performance across multiple schools. When each school measures data differently, it’s up to CTE directors to reconcile these differences.
Often, the solution that works best is a data management system that ensures every school is using the same measurements to quantify success.
5. Your Data Is Not Focused on CTE
Finally, many administrators use data management solutions engineered toward the traditional classroom experience that don’t show the complete picture of a CTE program.
But a CTE-specific solution can track completers, CTSOs, certifications, and more. This gives you a full picture of the value of a program to learners and communities.
The Importance of Quality CTE Data Management
In ensuring learners have an ideal CTE experience, quality data management makes all the difference. When you have an effective system in place, state and local CTE leaders will be able to use program data to make key program decisions benefiting everyone, expanding program offerings and providing certification opportunities that will open doors for learners in the future.
Solve Your CTE Data Management Problems
Each of these data-related complications can challenge CTE directors and administrators and leave with only part of the story. But when you adopt a CTE-specific data management solution like Eduthings, you can track and report on program performance and put CTE at the Forefront.
Visit the iCEV booth during the Advance CTE Spring Conference to learn how Eduthings can be your CTE command center and improve your data management with a custom solution.
