Today, December 16, the state launched a new web-based tool called the Iowa School Report Card, originally called Attendance Center Rankings. This website was created in response to legislation calling for measures of school performance.
Knowing where you are and where you want to go is a key part of growth and improvement. Our school regularly uses education data to tell us how our students are progressing and to adjust instruction for better results.
The state is now providing an additional source of information with the release of the Iowa School Report Card. This is a new web-based tool that provides a snapshot of every Iowa public school’s performance on certain educational measures, such as student attendance and proficiency rates.
The goal of the Iowa School Report Card is to present certain education data in a way that makes it easier for the public to find and understand. The Iowa Department of Education developed this tool in response to a 2013 legislative requirement (House File 215).
Specifically, the Iowa School Report Card scores schools on up to eight educational measures and then assigns an overall rating to each school based on its performance on the measures.
While we believe this information can add to conversations in our community about how we’re preparing our students for success, these measures are based on limited data. And, as we know from other accountability initiatives, schools are much more than labels. Labels and ratings do not tell the whole story.
The eight measures include:
- Proficiency: The percentage of students scoring proficient or better on reading and mathematics assessments.
- College and Career-Ready Growth: The percentage of students who are making the year-to-year growth necessary to be ready for college and career training by the end of high school.
- Annual Expected Growth: The percentage of students making a year of academic growth in a year’s time on reading and mathematics assessments.
- Closing Achievement Gap: A measure that reflects a statewide goal of narrowing the gap in achievement for students with disabilities, students who are eligible for free and reduced-price meals, and English Language Learners.
- College and Career Readiness: The percentage of students who score at or above a level of performance on reading and mathematics assessments that predicts a higher probability of postsecondary success. (Middle/high schools only.)
- Graduation Rate: The percentage of ninth-grade students who finished high school within five years. (High schools only.)
- Attendance: The average daily attendance of students, which is the total number of days students were enrolled and present divided by the total number of possible attendance days.
- Staff Retention: The percentage of teachers, school administrators and other licensed staff members who remained employed in a school over consecutive school years.
*Two other required measures, parent involvement and community activities/involvement, will be defined and included in the Iowa School Report Card at a later date.
Each attendance center is rated as one of the following:
- Exceptional
- High-Performing
- Commendable
- Acceptable
- Needs Improvement
- Priority
How is a school’s overall rating calculated?
School ratings represent a combination of scores on the eight educational measures. Each measure has a value from 1 to 100, which is multiplied by the weight to create a score for each measure. The weighting is the value each indicator contributes to the overall score. The score for each measure is determined, and then all measures are added together to create an overall score. The overall score determines which performance rating the school is assigned. Each measure is based on data from the 2013-14 and 2014-15 school years.
Where do the data come from?
The data come from multiple sources. Assessment results are received from the state’s assessment vendor, Iowa Testing Programs at the University of Iowa. Graduation rates and attendance rates are reported to the Department from school districts through the Student Reporting in Iowa collection system. Lastly, staff retention data are reported by districts in the Fall Basic Educational Data Survey Staff collection.
My school’s report card shows “Unable to Rate.” What does this mean?
Schools must have at least 70 percent of the performance measures to have a rating through the Iowa School Report Card. There are generally three reasons a school would not have enough data to be rated: 1. A school has too few students (fewer than 20) in certain categories to meet minimum group size requirements for reporting student data. These requirements are in place to protect the personally identifiable information of individuals under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. The minimum threshold of 10 is used for staff. 2. A school is new and lacks the multiple years of data needed to compile a rating. 3. The school’s grade configuration is
You can locate our school’s results, as well as more information about the Iowa School Report Card, on the following website: www.educateiowa.gov/schoolreportcard