A new report released by the Florida College Access Network (FCAN) examines the Central Florida Education Ecosystem Database (CFEED) Model, a regional data sharing system that provides insights into how to support student progress throughout pre K-12 and into postsecondary.
There is a clear moment at present for Florida to advance its education data systems to bring information closer to students, families, educators, and stakeholders. CFEED represents a community’s response toward a solution.
For Florida, strategic opportunities tied to additional resource development, collaborative research, and enhanced reporting would elevate its SLDS into an even more powerful engine – turbocharging it, if you will – for information-sharing, data-driven decision-making, and providing the insights needed to generate education, training, and labor market outcomes at scale.
While a statewide approach would advance those benefits across each of Florida’s 67 counties, one region in particular has seized the moment and, already, Central Florida education partners have collaborated on a ground-up model to do just that.
CFEED incorporates student data from the Orange and Osceola school districts, Valencia College, and the University of Central Florida around one big idea: Students will experience greater success when educators can secure timely information, gain insights into the students’ experiences, and plan together for successful transition across the educational journey.
Launched in 2018 with start-up assistance from the Helios Education Foundation, CFEED has prioritized outcomes – student progression and completion – from the start, working together to identify key milestones aligned with student success, remove unnecessary barriers, and design more tailored student supports. CFEED has focused on supporting students through their transitions: middle school to high school, high school to college, and college to university.
Most importantly, reporting is designed for action. Easily digestible and informative reports are accessible to institutional and program staff, allowing for timely interventional response.
CFEED is also expanding to include workforce outcome data, with plans to track employment and earnings by major and degree — connecting education investments directly to economic mobility.
The CFEED model takes no shortcuts related to student privacy, adhering to all state and federal requirements related to security of confidential student information – both as a matter of compliance and the cultivation and maintenance of trust among its partners.
The CFEED model – both in its architecture and spirit – demonstrates the power of data collaboration to support educational outcomes for both the student and the public. Regional partnerships like CFEED show what becomes possible when educators can ask their own questions of connected data — and make the case for what Florida could unlock at scale through a strengthened statewide longitudinal data system.
Additional Reading:
FCAN Report: Insights Into Action: The Next Phase of Florida’s Statewide Longitudinal Data System (November 2025)
Op-Ed by FCAN Executive Director, Braulio Colón: Let’s unlock education data’s full potential to make Florida talent strong (December 2025)