Data Tools

The economic recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic left some states facing unprecedented revenue shortfalls and all states facing billions in additional technical, logistical, safety, and support costs to help students continue to learn in a variety of settings and safely resume and operate schools in person.

Unfortunately, some state and district leaders and their representatives in Washington, DC, are beginning to lament how difficult it will be to attend to equity — as federal law now requires — in their budget decisions. Despite a better-than-expected financial outlook in many states and the infusion of federal funds, some states will cut state funding for education. In those places, the American Rescue Plan Act requires funding to be reduced in a way that minimizes harm to higher poverty districts. This tool shows just how critical this is, across the country and state by state.

Increasing the racial and cultural diversity of the teacher workforce takes a statewide commitment to collecting and analyzing educator workforce data and leading targeted, data-informed efforts to develop policies that recruit, support, and retain a high-quality and diverse educator workforce. This 50-state data and policy scan is designed to support these efforts by providing data analyses and a landscape of policies and practices in each state for advocates, educators, and policymakers leading this work at the state level.

Use the tool to learn about promising educator diversity policy practices across the country, review each state’s educator diversity data and policy profile, and see how your state rates against other state profiles.

Black and Latino students across the country experience inequitable access to advanced coursework opportunities. They are locked out of these opportunities early when they are denied access to gifted and talented programs in elementary school, and later in middle and high school, when they are not enrolled in eighth grade algebra and not given the chance to participate in Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB), and dual enrollment programs. As a result, these students are missing out on critical opportunities that can set them up for success in college and careers.

Only 1 percent of Latino children and 4 percent of Black children are enrolled in high-quality state preschool programs. In 26 states where early childhood education enrollment is reported by race and ethnicity, not a single one truly provided high-quality and high-access for Black and Latino 3- and 4-year-olds.

How does your state stack up? Find out with our Early Childhood Education Equity Tool.

College Results (CR) provides data on college graduation rates, net price, and other important information for nearly every four-year college or university in the country. This tool allows users to identify high-performing schools among similar institutions serving similar student demographics. If you’re considering colleges, this feature can help you pick one that has a good track record of success.

Inequities in funding are foundational to all sorts of other inequities in our schools. Yet as a nation, we continue to spend less on educating our low-income students and students of color — the very students who could benefit most from additional support in their schools.

Threats to DEI are only growing stronger, with continued plans to introduce bills in the next legislative session, and attacks occurring on the accreditation front. Use our interactive dashboard to keep track of the evolving attacks on DEI across the states.