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NSWERS Strategic Plan 2030 Progress

Overall Progress

The NSWERS Strategic Plan 2030 is organized around four interrelated goals that define the organization’s mission and direction through 2030. Each goal contains multiple objectives that specify the outcomes NSWERS will pursue. The strategies and tactics found within each objective provide the operational detail for achieving these outcomes.

The NSWERS Executive Council approved the NSWERS Strategic Plan 2030 goals and objectives on January 28, 2026 which will guide NSWERS’ work through 2030.

The 2030 Process

Goal 1

Sustain NSWERS Capacity to Deliver Statewide System Intelligence

NSWERS’ ability to synthesize, connect, and activate statewide system intelligence depends on sustained organizational capacity, including stable funding, skilled staff, strong governance, and strategic partnerships. This foundation ensures NSWERS remains durable, responsive, and secure as education and workforce systems evolve rapidly. While not a standalone analytic goal, this capacity underpins and enables all objectives in this plan. Sustaining this foundation requires intentional stewardship, periodic reassessment, and alignment with evolving demands placed on the statewide data system.

Percent Complete:

Objective 1.1 : Ensure Organizational Stability and Resilience
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Ensure NSWERS maintains skilled staff, strong governance, operational continuity, and strategic partnerships necessary to deliver Goals 2–4 over time, while remaining responsive to evolving policy priorities, partner needs, and technological change.
Objective 1.2 : Diversify Funding and Build Financial Resilience
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Pursue a balanced funding model that includes state appropriations tied to demonstrated value and use, competitive grants, public-private partnerships, and fee-for-service approaches where appropriate and permitted.
Objective 1.3 : Expand Awareness, Use, and Impact of NSWERS
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Strengthen NSWERS’ brand and positioning so partners, policymakers, and stakeholders understand NSWERS’ role and reliably view NSWERS as a trusted, neutral source of statewide system intelligence and pathway visibility.

Goal 2

Produce Actionable Insights that Inform Policy, Practice, and Evaluation

NSWERS serves as Nebraska’s trusted, neutral source of system-level intelligence by synthesizing, analyzing, evaluating, and modeling data that span education and workforce systems. This includes original analysis, policy-relevant evaluation, predictive and early-warning analytics, and scenario-based modeling that no single partner can produce alone.

Percent Complete:

Objective 2.1 : Establish and Sustain NSWERS as Nebraska’s Cross-System Evaluation and Analysis Resource
0%
This objective positions NSWERS as Nebraska’s system-level evaluation and learning function focused on assessing what is working, for whom, and under what conditions across education and workforce systems. Evaluations inform policy, program improvement, and resource allocation while maintaining neutrality and methodological rigor.
Objective 2.2 : Advance Predictive, Early-Warning, and Scenario-Based Analytic Capacity
0%
This objective extends NSWERS analytic work beyond retrospective analysis to include forward-looking system intelligence. Analyses support proactive planning while acknowledging uncertainty; AI-enabled approaches support modeling and exploration but do not automate decisions and remain governed and human-reviewed.
Objective 2.3 : Align Analytic Production to Statewide Decision Cycles
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This objective ensures NSWERS analytic work is produced at the right time and in the right form to inform real decisions, balancing planned analyses with rapid-response capacity.
Objective 2.4 : Maintain Analytic Integrity, Neutrality, and Transparency
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Trust is foundational to NSWERS’ role. This objective ensures all analytic work adheres to high standards of rigor, neutrality, and transparency, including documentation, review processes, disclosure avoidance, and accessible explanations for non-technical audiences.

Goal 3

Maintain and Grow a Trusted, High-Quality Education-to-Workforce Data System

This goal focuses on the data infrastructure and connective tissue that enable statewide understanding of education-to-workforce pathways. NSWERS expands and links high-quality data sources, maintains robust governance and quality, and ensures technical adaptability as systems evolve.

Percent Complete:

Objective 3.1 : Continuously Expand and Modernize High-Quality Data Sources
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Sustain and strengthen Nebraska’s statewide longitudinal data system to ensure high-quality, secure, and integrated data across education and workforce systems.
Objective 3.2 : Strengthen Cross-System Pathway Connectivity
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This objective enhances NSWERS’ ability to show how individuals move through education and into the workforce over time by strengthening linkage methods, pathway definitions, and interpretability guidance.
Objective 3.3 : Sustain Robust Data Governance, Quality, and Interoperability
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As NSWERS grows in scope and use, governance, quality, privacy, and security must scale accordingly to protect sensitive information, maintain partner trust, and support broader and more sophisticated use.
Objective 3.4 : Ensure Technical Flexibility to Adapt to Change
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Emphasize adaptability rather than static optimization: architecture should support innovation, integration of new tools, and evolving analytic needs while maintaining reliability and security.

Goal 4

Activate Data and Insights for Real Decisions

This goal focuses on turning statewide system intelligence and pathway visibility into practical use. NSWERS will expand access to governed tools and services, deliver actionable insights and consultative support, build statewide capacity for responsible data use, and reduce reporting burden through shared solutions while preserving privacy, neutrality, and role clarity.

Percent Complete:

Objective 4.1 : Deliver Actionable Insights to Partners for Local Decision Making
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This objective formalizes the delivery of actionable insights as a core NSWERS function by expanding partner access to Insights+, broadening consultative and custom analytic services, expanding outcome coverage where feasible, and providing reliable customer support so partners can apply NSWERS outputs in real decision contexts.
Objective 4.2 : Build Statewide Capacity for Data-Informed Practice
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This objective builds a durable statewide data-informed practice capability by communicating findings in clear, neutral ways and offering structured learning opportunities (conferences, academies, workshops, topic forums) that meet stakeholders where they are.
Objective 4.3 : Reduce Reporting Burden and Increase Efficiency
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This objective identifies high-burden reporting requirements and pilots shared solutions that save partner time and improve consistency while maintaining governance and accuracy.
Objective 4.4 : Promote Transparency and Public Understanding of Education and Workforce Outcomes
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This objective ensures partners, policymakers, and the public understand what NSWERS does and does not do, how privacy is protected, and how to responsibly interpret outputs. It also ensures NSWERS systematically gathers feedback and improves tool usability while preserving neutrality.