Learn how to use the framework
The Education-to-Workforce Indicator Framework (E-W Framework) is designed to help organizations and individuals advance educational and economic opportunity for all. How you use the framework may depend on your organization’s goals, its capacity to collect and use data, and your individual role.
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to using the E-W Framework. You might use all five of the framework’s components together or select those that are most relevant to your work:
- Essential questions can help you clarify goals and guide data collection and data use to answer the questions that matter most to individuals and communities. Use the framework’s 20 essential questions as a starting point to help you establish student-centered priorities; organize teams to focus on shared goals; or identify allies, collaborators, and contributors.
- Indicators can help you identify and gather data that are actionable and meaningful for promoting systems change and equitable outcomes. Choose from the framework’s 99 recommended indicators to determine what individual- and system-level information is most important to measure to answer your essential questions and determine next steps.
- Disaggregates can help you assess disparities in your community, understand hidden trends, and make informed decisions that lead to more equitable outcomes. Choose from the framework’s recommended characteristics to help guide your data collection and disaggregation during analysis.
- Evidence-based practices can help you identify and implement approaches to improve student outcomes and supports based on opportunities and needs that data reveal.
- Data equity principles can help you explore data in a way that incorporates insights from communities, leading to more sustainable and effective solutions. These principles should always be applied to data-related work, regardless of whether you choose to use the entire framework or some of its components.
Although the E-W Framework suggests 20 essential questions and 99 indicators as a north star around which education-to-workforce data systems can and should align, implementing the framework does not require that alignment be achieved all at once.
Alignment across and within education-to-workforce sectors will take time, and the E-W Framework offers an approach for making improvements. Progress might be incremental, but each of us has a role to play. For instance, if you are a policymaker, you will likely have different goals—and will therefore take a different approach to using the E-W Framework to achieve them—than an advocate, practitioner, researcher, or funder.
Here are some examples of how different types of individuals or organizations might use the framework to achieve their priorities:
A state education agency seeks to understand how students progress from early education to the workforce by focusing on career pathways. Agency staff use the framework’s workforce-related essential questions to help clarify their priorities and take a student-centered approach to data collection and use.
A local district aims to improve K–12 students' well-being. Administrators take stock of the available data on school climate and social-emotional wellness, and then refer to the framework’s suggested indicators and metrics to prioritize which additional data to collect and how.
An advocacy organization is concerned about the lack of disaggregated data, as it believes that current analysis practices are masking disparities. Organization staff use the framework’s disaggregates as a starting point for messaging efforts around improving data collection and disaggregation.
A funder wants to invest in new research on defining and measuring “culturally responsive curricula.” They use the framework as a starting point to better understand this construct and its existing evidence base before making their next strategic funding decision.
A researcher is evaluating an early learning initiative, but resources for new data collection are limited. They use the framework to understand which indicators related to their research design are well established and can be collected with minimal cost and time.
Next, explore how to apply the E-W Framework to achieve your goals to advance educational and economic opportunity for all.