Overview
What is Cal-PASS?
Cal-PASS is an initiative that collects, analyzes and shares student data in order to track performance and improve success from elementary school through university. By bringing the segments together to examine transition and success, Cal-PASS represents a new approach to improving education.
What process does Cal-PASS use?
Cal-PASS utilizes its
Core Values of collaboration, discovery, alignment, innovation, evaluation and expansion.
Through the Cal-PASS process, elementary, middle, high schools, colleges and universities are learning the answers to questions such as:
- How do my students do when they leave here?
- Were they well prepared? Are adjustments in curriculum necessary to improve their preparation?
- How many got degrees? What did they get degrees in? How long did it take?
Cal-PASS is a simple and very practical approach that helps educators:
- Understand student performance, including transitions
- Improve instruction
- Increase student success
Who is Involved?
Over 8,400 elementary schools, high schools, community colleges, colleges and universities, from throughout California are participating in this partnership. It includes 8,275 K-12 schools, 97% of all public post-secondary institutions and 1,000 teachers, counselors and faculty convening monthly in more than 45 discipline-based Professional Learning Councils to work with data.
What is Involved?
Each participating institution signs an agreement to provide data once a year, and then appoints a representative to gather and access data. This data focuses primarily on student transcript information, such as courses, grades, and outcomes. Participants have access to student data 24/7. Technical assistance is available through Cal-PASS Monday-Friday.
What About Privacy?
To ensure confidentiality and consistency with FERPA (Family Education Rights and Privacy Act) guidelines, student identifiers, including social security numbers and names, are encrypted. Access to data is restricted to personnel working directly on the project. For schools that do not collect a SSN, another unique identifier is used.
Who Benefits?
Students, faculty and institutions. Students are better prepared and more likely to succeed in the next phase of their education. Faculty are empowered to track their students’ progression and align curriculum as needed. Institutions benefit by having more prepared students who achieve greater outcomes.
Why Hasn’t Cal-PASS Been Done Before Now?
Separate systems for different bureaucracies inadvertently erected barriers that ranged from differing computer systems to concerns about hardware capacity. Fortunately, today’s advanced computer and software technologies overcome these concerns and are able to process large quantities of data quickly while maintaining individual student anonymity.