Visualizing Student Growth with Sankey Diagrams

Tracking student performance isn't just about knowing where students are—it's about understanding how they got there and where they're going next. Sankey diagrams offer a powerful way to visualize that movement, helping educators identify progress, patterns, and opportunities for targeted support.

What Are Sankey Diagrams?

Sankey diagrams are flow-based visualizations where the width of each path represents the number of students transitioning between groups. They allow you to follow students as they move from one performance level to another across different time points—like fall, winter, and spring assessments.

Rather than showing data as isolated snapshots, Sankey diagrams bring movement into focus.

Why They Matter in Education

Most school dashboards offer bar or pie charts that show how many students fall into each performance group. Useful? Yes. But incomplete.

Sankey diagrams help answer questions like:

• How many students moved from “Basic” to “Proficient”?
• Who slipped from “Proficient” to “Below Basic”?
• Are our interventions working for the students who need them most?

This type of insight is essential for data-informed decision-making.

Practical Applications for Schools

Imagine you group students into performance tiers—Below Basic, Basic, Proficient, and Advanced—based on benchmark assessments given three times a year. A Sankey diagram shows:

• Growth: Students who move up a level
• Stability: Students who stay in the same tier
• Decline: Students who drop down a level

At a glance, administrators and instructional teams can spot trends, pinpoint at-risk groups, and celebrate student gains.

From Insight to Action

At School-Metrics, we integrate Sankey diagrams into our dashboards to help schools:

• Monitor the impact of instructional strategies
• Target interventions more effectively
• Communicate student progress to stakeholders in a clear, visual way

It’s not just about the data—it’s about using that data to guide action.

Final Thoughts

Student learning is fluid. Our data tools should reflect that. Sankey diagrams reveal the full story behind performance numbers, making them an ideal tool for school improvement efforts focused on growth, equity, and impact.

Want to see your student data in motion? Contact us to learn how School-Metrics can help.