Usable Data for High School Students, Parents and Teachers: An Example from Florida’s FACTS.org

Periodically, we will provide examples of programs the U.S. Department of Education, state and local education agencies, and individual schools are implementing to improve secondary education. In doing so, the National High School Center is sharing information, not endorsing programs or entities.

Florida’s Academic Tracking for Students (FACTS.org) is the Florida Department of Education’s statewide student advising system. The system enables students to explore careers, plan their high school courses, track their progress toward graduation, and check their eligibility for Bright Futures and other scholarships.

FACTS.org allows easy-to-use searches for degree programs and institutional profiles to help students identify postsecondary institutions and fill out one basic application that can be submitted to multiple colleges and universities. Students can also apply for state and federal financial aid on FACTS.org.

Starting in the 2008-09 school year, promotion from 8th to 9th grade in Florida requires the completion of a Career and Education Planning course, including the creation of an electronic Personal Education Plan (ePEP) on FACTS.org. Student transcripts are downloaded into FACTS.org and students and guidance counselors are able to track students’ progress on the education plans and progress is reviewed at least annually.

Some interesting facts about FACTS.org in SY 2008-09 include:

  • FACTS.org recorded over 28 million hits.
  • Counselors and educators visited the site nearly 700,000 times and high school students visited more than 3 million times.
  • FACTS.org was visited nearly 3 million times by students to apply to college.
  • By June, 91% of 8th graders had created an electronic Personal Education Plan.

Click here to visit www.FACTS.org.

Note: This blog post was originally authored under the auspices of the National High School Center at the American Institutes for Research (AIR). The National High School Center’s blog, High School Matters, which ran until March 2013, provided an objective perspective on the latest research, issues, and events that affected high school improvement. The CCRS Center plans to continue relevant work originally developed under the National High School Center grant. National High School Center blog posts that pertain to CCRS Center issues are included on this website as a resource to our stakeholders.

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