NAF, a National Education Non-Profit, Launches Dynamic, Free Tool That Dives Deeper into the Barriers and Challenges Facing School Communities
(January 17, 2024 – New York, NY) – For decades, since the National School Lunch Act was first signed into effect, our education system and policymakers have relied on free and reduced-price lunch as the standard metric for describing socioeconomic need. Now, a new tool seeks to change this, to provide greater insights into the barriers and challenges facing students in historically marginalized school communities, and, in turn, guide the right resources to where they’re needed.
NAF, a national education non-profit, which supports high school students’ efforts to be future ready, has collaborated with the NYU Marron Institute of Urban Management to develop the Open Data Index for Schools or ODIS, a free, first-of-its-kind open data resource, to help address this issue. Community data is often used to determine how billions of dollars in education funding is distributed to states and school districts, making it even more imperative that it’s accurate, accessible, and comprehensive.
Long-standing NAF partner, KPMG LLP, the U.S. audit, tax, and advisory firm, is already using the tool to guide philanthropy initiatives.
“ODIS will help those in our industry understand community and nonprofit engagement across the country and evaluate where resources will have the greatest impact. Knowing the specific barriers each community is facing at the school district level gives our team and others the information needed to make informed, strategic decisions to support community impact efforts. We are excited to see the evolution of ODIS and continue to identify new ways to incorporate the tool in our work at KPMG,” said Anita Whitehead, President and Chair of the KPMG U.S. Foundation.
ODIS conveys data on five areas of school community barriers and challenges (economic, education, health, housing, and crime) by combining 17 indicators of quality of life. Users can compare data across individual school communities, the school district, city, county, and state levels for more than 23,000 public high school communities nationwide and ODIS exclusively uses open, public data from reputable organizations with a national reach and an update cycle of no more than three years. It is groundbreaking, in being able to identify and aggregate information on community barriers at the school community level, or the geographic area specific to a school’s attendance boundary.
NAF Chief Executive Officer, Lisa Dughi, said, “ODIS is finally here! After 40+ years of working to support high school students in communities across the nation, NAF is thrilled to present this game-changing tool that will enable us to pinpoint the most significant areas of need and tell a more complete story. We know that ODIS will have many benefits for multiple stakeholders seeking to have a greater impact and achieve better outcomes in under-invested in communities.”
Here’s how ODIS can support driving change toward better long-term and quality-of-life outcomes for school communities and students:
Angela Lee Smith, Ed.S., Program Specialist for Academies of Birmingham, and an ODIS pilot participant, shared, “State and local leaders should not focus on education alone but consider how to address health, economic, and other needs at the same time. That’s where ODIS comes in!”
To learn more about ODIS, watch the video and visit: https://odis.naf.org/
###
About NAF:
NAF is a national education non-profit that brings schools and businesses together to better prepare students of all backgrounds. Since 1980, NAF has led a movement for immersive, career-focused teaching and work-based learning. With the support of NAF community-based advisory boards, schools connect with the workforce to fuel shared progress—from creating culturally responsive curriculum and paid internship opportunities, to fostering innovation and building future-ready businesses. NAF helps students explore career options, create a plan for the future, and take part in hands-on, work-based learning unlike anything traditional public education systems can offer. NAF puts students on a path to achieving their full potential.
NAF has grown from one NAF Academy of Finance in New York City to hundreds of academies across the country focusing on growing industries including finance, hospitality & tourism, information technology, engineering, and health sciences; and support programs of study that are aligned with the National Career Clusters Framework. During the 2022-23 school year, over 112,000 students attended over 600 NAF academies across 35 states and territories. In 2022, NAF academies reported 99% of seniors graduated with 88% of graduates planning to go to college. www.naf.org