Navigating to High Quality Learning Options. Charting a Course

This report is the third in a series that unpacks the barriers to access that families face, the variety of solutions that navigation organizations have developed, and the challenges that limit the reach and impact of those solutions. This series offers recommendations for how to help navigators address these challenges and support more families and students. Navigation organizations lack access to information on learning options and must often collect it themselves. Several challenges contribute to the lack of information available on the quality of learning options, beginning with the lack of consensus regarding what constitutes a "quality" education. This report discusses the importance of providing families with guidance on options that best match students' needs. More and better data on learning options is necessary, and there are ways that funders, intermediaries, researchers, and policymakers can help. Accreditation systems and input metrics can build the foundation for more robust measures. Tailored approaches to measure the quality of providers could surface new, valid, and reliable measures for others to adopt. Over time, improvements to data would allow navigators, families, and the field to better understand the learning options that best support students' success.