Greetings all,

As we begin a new year, I want to take a moment to reflect on ERDC’s 2024 accomplishments and share some of the exciting initiatives we are looking forward to in the coming year. I am deeply grateful for the partnerships, both within and beyond our state government, that make our work possible and impactful. Most importantly, I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to the incredible ERDC team, including staff from our Forecasting Systems team. Your dedication, whether through reaching big milestones like finishing a report or the small yet essential contributions like returning a community members inquiry about one of our dashboards, continues to solidify our reputation as one of the best P20W organizations in the nation.

Thank you for all you do, and here’s to a bright and successful 2025!

Katie

Celebrating Our 2024 Accomplishments

In 2024, ERDC continued to carry out our core data and research functions, including:

• Received 80 data requests for P20W data and delivered 60 requests to state agencies, legislative staff, nonprofit organizations, ethnic commissions, and academic researchers. Please view our new public log for additional details on data requests - Public Data Request Log | Washington State Education Research and Data Center.
• Maintained 50+ data share agreements (DSAs) for data that comes into ERDC’s P20W data system and created or amended 20+ DSAs to allow external researchers to use P20W data for authorized studies.
• Held ERDC’s first P20W Research Meeting on December 19 under our new governance structure, which is described in our updated Data Governance Manual.

• Fulfilled our obligations for dashboards, research reports or sharing data as required under Washington state law - State Research & Reporting Requirements | Washington State Education Research and Data Center. 

  • Updated multiple dashboards, including the Dual Credit Dashboard, Public Four-Year Finance Dashboard, Earnings for Graduates Dashboard, and Statewide Public Four-Year Dashboard.

  • Completed annual research reports on Dual Credit and Washington State Financial Aid Extension.

  • Provided data to partners such as the Washington Student Achievement Council (WSAC) and the Project Education Impact (PEI) for studies or reporting.

ERDC has completed projects that focus on making our data services and research more transparent, accessible, and impactful.

• With funding from the Gates Foundation ERDC’s data and request process is more transparent and accessible. Check out:

  • The redesigned website.

  • Updated data documentation, including a data dictionary and a data handbook.

  • A new public-facing log that lists all data requests and their status in the ERDC fulfillment process.

• ERDC is getting data in the hands of those who can create impact. ERDC presented at:

  • Two LEVinars (Webinars hosted by the League of Education Votes) to discuss the outcomes of students who are in foster care, homeless, or enrolled in institutional education settings and to provide an overview of what ERDC has learned about dual credit participants in Washington state.

  • The Washington Education Research Association (WERA) on Dual Credit and helped facilitate a discussion on how to make a study on CTE more impactful.

Looking Forward to 2025

• With funding from the Gates foundation ERDC will develop and begin implementation of a postsecondary data strategy.
• ERDC and OSPI will continue to work to share postsecondary data with Washington Public School Districts. The first set of reports were delivered to districts in January 2025 with a second set of reports following soon.
• ERDC’s Dual Credit Workgroup made a request for school district-level data to be available in the ERDC Dual Credit dashboard and this enhancement was just published.
• ERDC’s High School Outcomes Dashboard will be updated in Winter of 2025 to include the 2023 high school graduates.
• The Statewide Public Four-Year Dashboard will be released this month and will include 2023-2024 completion.
• Completing multiple research projects, funded by an extension of the 2019 SLDS Department of Education grant, including a study on institutional education, career and technical education, foster care, and postsecondary enrollment.

ERDC Data in Action

The Strategic Data Partnership (SDP) at Harvard University worked with ERDC to produce a Workforce Pathways Diagnostic Research Report. The findings from this report were presented to the ERDC Research Workgroup in December. Some of the key findings from the report include:

Both college access and completion contribute to low attainment rates.

• Around 30% of Washington high school graduates began but did not complete college.
• Only a small fraction of students who stopped out return to college, suggesting that preventing initial stop out is a crucial strategy to increase degree attainment.

College graduates earn more at work.

• Students with bachelor’s degrees experienced the largest earnings premiums.
• Nearly 50% of workers with only a high school degree did not earn over the living wage threshold in Washington as compared to only 15% of those with bachelor’s degrees.

Credentials alone do not determine wages. The wage premium associated with earning a college credential varies by student characteristics.

• A college degree does not erase racial differences in earnings. Racial earnings gaps are persistent across credential types and prior achievement.
• Earning gaps were present across other dimensions of student demographics including sex and pre-college socioeconomic status.