Southwest Florida, Post-Secondary Education, Smart Data and Civic Health
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Dave Fleming
May 9, 2013, 9:25:20 AM5/9/13
to civic-data...@googlegroups.com
Greetings fellow "ideators"
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The Need:
The Southwest Florida Community Foundation recently launched its first Regional Call to Action, FutureMakers, after determining that the widening educational gap — the difference between the number of students going on to college or other post-secondary programs, and the number of educated workers needed — is a critically important issue that could be addressed and impacted through a regional strategy.
According to the NCoC, the civic health of most of Florida’s communities fall well below national averages – and parts of our region have been cited in the Florida’s Civic health Index to be among the worst in the state. One of NCoC’s major findings indicates that there is a correlation between increases in volunteering with higher education; specifically, the report states that college graduates are much more likely than their less educated peers to vote, volunteer in their communities, read newspapers, trust one another and key institutions, and participate in a civic group.
We think that by focusing on education and graduation rates in our community, there is a strategic opportunity for a double bottom line return on our philanthropic investment: a region with a workforce that is educated and well prepared for employment as well as the social capital skills needed to be engaged members of our community.
Our Idea:
For our region to hold itself collectively accountable for implementing our Call to Action, we must organize ourselves in a data-driven process that:
To accomplish this, our idea is to create a data visualization platform that tracks measurements such as: 1) FAFSFA completion, 2) Dollars for post secondary education to student ratio in Southwest Florida, and 3) the affect of mentoring on the discovery process. The current civic health data will create a baseline to see if improvements to access to post-secondary education also positively impact our community’s civic health.
We are visualizing this data with additional layers to look for correlations with economic development data, specifically recovery data, proximity to not for profits and other community resources and a deep educational data dictionary through our partnership with the Florida College Access Network.
The aim is to allow the data, in all five Southwest Florida counties, to inform both needs and solutions with regard to post-secondary education of 2014 graduating seniors (and beyond). However, another important aim is to allow the data about post-secondary education and graduating seniors to lead us to other important data with regard to the civic health of the region and the possibility of other vital Regional Calls to Action.
We have attached a broader description of FutureMakers.
The Need:
The Southwest Florida Community Foundation recently launched its first Regional Call to Action, FutureMakers, after determining that the widening educational gap — the difference between the number of students going on to college or other post-secondary programs, and the number of educated workers needed — is a critically important issue that could be addressed and impacted through a regional strategy.
According to the NCoC, the civic health of most of Florida’s communities fall well below national averages – and parts of our region have been cited in the Florida’s Civic health Index to be among the worst in the state. One of NCoC’s major findings indicates that there is a correlation between increases in volunteering with higher education; specifically, the report states that college graduates are much more likely than their less educated peers to vote, volunteer in their communities, read newspapers, trust one another and key institutions, and participate in a civic group.
We think that by focusing on education and graduation rates in our community, there is a strategic opportunity for a double bottom line return on our philanthropic investment: a region with a workforce that is educated and well prepared for employment as well as the social capital skills needed to be engaged members of our community.
Our Idea:
For our region to hold itself collectively accountable for implementing our Call to Action, we must organize ourselves in a data-driven process that:
- Will provide insights about post-secondary education and graduating seniors in all five Southwest Florida counties;
- Helps us to pinpoint both needs and solutions that will have the greatest impact with regard to post-secondary education for 2014 graduating seniors (and beyond);
- Creates a baseline and the metrics to track our progress;
- Informs our community stakeholders on how to best align our resources and assets; and
- Provides us insight how to keep improving, as opposed to merely proving whether or not we’re failing.
To accomplish this, our idea is to create a data visualization platform that tracks measurements such as: 1) FAFSFA completion, 2) Dollars for post secondary education to student ratio in Southwest Florida, and 3) the affect of mentoring on the discovery process. The current civic health data will create a baseline to see if improvements to access to post-secondary education also positively impact our community’s civic health.
We are visualizing this data with additional layers to look for correlations with economic development data, specifically recovery data, proximity to not for profits and other community resources and a deep educational data dictionary through our partnership with the Florida College Access Network.
The aim is to allow the data, in all five Southwest Florida counties, to inform both needs and solutions with regard to post-secondary education of 2014 graduating seniors (and beyond). However, another important aim is to allow the data about post-secondary education and graduating seniors to lead us to other important data with regard to the civic health of the region and the possibility of other vital Regional Calls to Action.
We have attached a broader description of FutureMakers.
Alice Murphy
May 9, 2013, 11:05:53 AM5/9/13
to civic-data...@googlegroups.com
This is great! If you haven't already done so, please share this through our IdeaScale tool http://civicdatachallenge.ideascale.com/
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