Iowa School Report Card
The Iowa Department of Education continues to role out information to evaluate and rate each public school. The website will provides Iowans a snapshot of how our public schools and school districts are performing in areas such as student attendance, graduation rates, student proficiency rates and growth toward college and career readiness.
The system meets a 2013 legislative requirement and aligns with Department efforts to provide Iowans easier access to educational statistics, to hold schools accountable for student progress, and to support local efforts to improve schools.
This website will enable users to look up this information for any public school or district, including ours. You may find the Iowa School Report Card at www.educateiowa.gov/schoolreportcard . It assigns schools one of the six ratings: Exceptional, High-Performing, Commendable, Acceptable, Needs Improvement, and Priority. Schools are grouped by comparable grade configurations (elementary, middle, and high schools)
The ratings are based on each school’s performance over a two-year span on the following educational measures:
- Proficiency: The percentage of students scoring proficient or better on state 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 state 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.
Iowa School Report Card scores and ratings are based on data reported by school districts for the 2013-14 and 2014-15 school years. The scores and ratings, which will be updated annually, apply only to public schools – districts do not receive ratings. No consequences or rewards are tied to the school ratings.
We believe this information can complement conversations in our community about our work to provide students a great education. However, student performance data only tell part of the story about how our schools are doing. To get the full story, I encourage you to stay connected with our schools as much as possible. Thanks for all you do for our kids.
Your Partner in Education,
Rob Busch
