Please join us for the upcoming presentation of the Maryland Longitudinal Data System (MLDS) Center Research Series Virtual Brown Bag. This brown bag is a forum to bring together researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to discuss in-progress research on academic and workforce outcomes.
Title: "Using SLDS Data to Advance Research on Early Warning Systems"
Date and Time: Friday, April 18, 2025, 12-1 p.m. Eastern
Location: Google Meet joining information:
Video call link: https://meet.google.com/zso-gots-vdw
Or dial: (US) +1 443-776-0338 PIN: 117 528 522#
More phone numbers: https://tel.meet/zso-gots-vdw?pin=1206125667910
Presentation Abstract
Two presentations will highlight how state longitudinal data systems (SLDS) in Maryland and Michigan have advanced research on early warning systems, which are widely implemented in school districts across the United States to identify which students are likely to need interventions early in their high school careers to promote successful high school graduation and postsecondary outcomes for students. The first presentation “Can C Students Be On-Track for Postsecondary Success? Evidence from Two State Longitudinal Data Systems” uses SLDS data from Michigan and Maryland to explore the factors and conditions in which some students who complete high school with a “C” average (GPA) still manage to enroll in postsecondary schooling and attain postsecondary awards. The second presentation, “Variation in the Performance of High School Early Warning Indicators across Districts and Schools” uses SLDS data from Maryland to examine how well early warning indicators commonly used in high school distinguished between on-time graduates and non-graduates across districts and schools and relates predictions to postsecondary outcomes.
Presenters: Vaughan Byrnes, MSc, Robert Balfanz, PhD, and Juan Cortes, MEd
Vaughan Byrnes has worked at the Center for Social Organization of Schools at Johns Hopkins University since 2001, where his work has focused on the evaluation of education policy and intervention programs. He has spent the past 10 years working primarily on analyses of high school dropouts and early warning indicators thereof, for state departments of education in Florida, Arkansas, and Tennessee, and large school districts such as Nashville and San Jose. His main area of interest and expertise is in research methodology, including the selection and implementation of appropriate research designs and statistical analyses for studies, as well as the supervision of data collection and processing and the development of evaluation tools and instruments. He received his MSc in research methodology and statistics, with merit, from the London School of Economics after having first completed an Honors BA in sociology with a minor in economics at McGill University.
Robert Balfanz is a Distinguished Professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education, Center for Social Organization of Schools, and director of the Everyone Graduates Center. His work focuses on translating research findings into effective school improvement strategies and educational reforms. He conducts research, publishes widely, and organizes improvement efforts on secondary school redesign, improving high school graduation and college readiness rates, student success systems, chronic absenteeism, and instructional improvements in high-poverty schools. Much of his research has involved individual-level, longitudinal data sets, including foundational work on early warning indicators and chronic absenteeism. His work was featured in PBS Frontline’s "The Education of Omarina" and has been awarded the Alliance For Excellent Education’s Everyone a Graduate Award and the National Forum to Accelerate Middle Grade Reform Joan Lipsitz Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2013, the Obama White House recognized him as a Champion for Change for African American education. He has a BA in history from Johns Hopkins University and a PhD in education from the University of Chicago.
Juan B. Cortes is a PhD candidate at the Johns Hopkins School of Education and a graduate research assistant at the Baltimore Education Research Consortium. His research broadly focuses on examining students’ educational trajectories as they navigate systemic structures, particularly for minoritized and marginalized populations. His current work involves improving early-warning indicators that identify middle and high school students in need of support as well as examining geospatial access to postsecondary institutions at both the urban and state level contexts.