Interactive dashboard provides unique view of early childhood readiness in SC

EDITOR’S NOTE: The EOC held a full committee meeting on February 14, 2022. At that meeting, members received information on the public dashboard . 

COLUMBIA - On February 14, the EOC presented information on the SC Education Data Dashboard for 4K-5K students, the first time the EOC has offered information about enrollment in public-funded, full-day four-year-old programs in SC and kindergarten readiness in an interactive dashboard format. The public dashboard allows users to filter available data by county, school district, and state and national legislative districts.
 
“For many years, the Education Oversight Committee has had a mandate to report on the 4K landscape in SC,” stated Executive Director Matthew Ferguson. “What makes this dashboard unique is that users can better locate and filter information allowing policymakers, families, and educators to answer specific questions and make better-informed decisions on behalf of students.”

“All of us who work in education want to better serve the children in our care. If we can effectively use the existing data sources to visualize and answer questions, something the dashboard format has the potential to allow, we can better support students,” said Ferguson.
 
As part of its annual budget recommendations to the General Assembly in December 2021, the EOC requested recurring Education Improvement Act (EIA) funds be allocated toward a broader Education Data Dashboard which would interface with existing systems in order to document academic attainment and growth and surface financial data.
 
The EOC is required, by State budget proviso, to conduct an annual evaluation of the South Carolina Child Early Learning and Development Education Program and to issue findings in a report to the SC General Assembly.