A high-quality career readiness data ecosystem should not only collect, analyze and report data but also use the information to promote quality and equity. State leaders should integrate career readiness data into policymaking and decision-making processes to further a statewide career preparation system that is high quality and equitable. 
Ohio’s Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V) Equity Labs guide key stakeholders through a process of identifying gaps in access to or success in Career Technical Education (CTE) programs, discussing root causes of those gaps, and creating actionable plans to address them. In 2019, for the first round of Equity Labs, each of Ohio’s 91 Career-Technical Planning Districts (CTPD) — local education agency configurations that consist of a number of school districts and deliver CTE programs — submitted their data to the Ohio Department of Education, which then developed a report with data in three main categories: meaningful access, engagement and enrollment, and student outcomes. The data in the report is disaggregated by race/ethnicity, gender, migrant status and special population status. Each CTPD was invited to bring five to 10 internal stakeholders to participate in the Equity Lab to analyze the data, identify the largest and most pressing gap, and conduct a root cause analysis on the identified gap. Lastly, participants developed a SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time bound) goal to address the gap and a plan to evaluate movement toward improvement.
The Ohio Department of Education showed districts how the exercise of analyzing data, identifying root causes, and creating actionable plans to address the identified gaps can be applied to a district’s Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment (CLNA). The CLNA is required by Perkins V and mandates that local districts evaluate their progress toward equitable outcomes for all students. By connecting the Equity Labs to the CLNA, districts can better understand which groups of students are gaining access to CTE programs of study that lead to high-wage, high-skill or in-demand careers; where the gaps exist; and what systems-level changes should be made so every learner can benefit from meaningful, high-quality CTE. 
Bringing together local leaders to analyze and reflect on career readiness data and acknowledge the areas that need improvement is critical to ensure that the statewide career preparation system is high quality and equitable for all learners. Read the Advance CTE case study, Ohio’s Perkins V Equity Labs, to learn more about how Ohio leverages data to improve the quality and equity of its CTE programs. For additional resources on improving the quality and use of career readiness data, check out the Career Readiness Data Quality microsite.  
This is the sixth and final edition in a series of Advance CTE data quality blogs to accompany Advance CTE’s latest releases, Career Readiness Data Quality and Use Policy Benchmark Tool and Data Quality Case Studies. For more resources on data and accountability or access and equity in CTE, please visit the Learning that Works Resource Center.
Brian Robinson, Policy Associate