Parents are paying closer attention to education options for their children. The pandemic has forced communities to not reinvent the wheel, but rather invent different types of wheels to meet the academic needs of a socially and academically diverse student body. This is one of the few positive outcomes of COVID19. Regardless of the academic option one chooses, information and data are necessary to make informed decisions for one’s children.
For parents who wish to stay with or return to the public education option, school performance data can help parents decide where they want to enroll their children for a chance to net the best academic outcomes for them. Unfortunately, many parents don’t know where to locate critical performance information for public schools. All one needs is an internet connection and a wealth of information is readily available to them.
The National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) issues a report card for each public school district and school in the nation. The purpose of the report card is to measure academic achievement and progress of students at different grading intervals. The report card has school and/ or district student and teacher demographics, school discipline information and achievement data that outlines the school and district’s performance compared to student performance across the state. The federal report card is available to download and print from the district’s and school’s webpages. The NAEP has three performance categories, specifically Basic, Proficient and Advanced:
•The NAEP Basic performance represents partial mastery of required knowledge and skills that are foundational for work at each grade level.
•The NAEP Proficient level represents solid academic achievement at the grade assessed. These students demonstrate competency over challenging content including knowledge, application of knowledge in real-world situations and appropriate analytical skills related to the subject matter.
•The NAEP Advanced level is the highest level of achievement, representing superior performance with tested content.
The federal report card will report the percentage of students in the school and district performance in reading and math at the Basic, Proficient and Advanced levels. Hopefully the data you review from your local campus’ report card reflects higher percentages for reading and math at proficient or above. Proficient is where we want students to be as Basic reflects only partial mastery of skills needed for work at each grade.
With this information, you can get a good idea of how students are progressing in reading and math, grouped by grade, race, socioeconomic circumstances and disabilities. Data like this speaks directly to student achievement, the true indicator good schools. A nice building and wonderful teachers make good schools great, but if the children aren’t achieving adequately, the pretty schools and great teachers aren’t the priority. Know for yourself how your chosen school is performing. Be sure to ask for help interpreting results if you need assistance. Any campus administrator should be able to help you. Information is power. Proceed powerfully.
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