One week ago Tuesday the Iowa Department of Education released 'embargoed' access to the Iowa School Performance Profiles for each school and district in the state. They embargo this data to give school districts time to review the results, prepare their own individual press releases and to provide context to stakeholders. You can read the press release from the Iowa Department of Education here. It also gives us an opportunity to share the results internally with our faculty and staff. Frankly it is good practice since the state wants to ensure schools have the opportunity to evaluate the rankings before being asked for comment from one of the local media outlets. But, it has forced me to keep a secret from you all for over a week now. A secret that I have been really excited to share with you! First some background.
Each school in Iowa is designated in one of six categories: Priority, Needs Improvement, Acceptable, Commendable, High Performing, or Exceptional. Those schools designated as either 'Priority' or 'Needs Improvement' are identified as not meeting federal guidelines for accountability purposes and will receive either targeted or comprehensive assistance. I am very excited to report to you that both our K-6 and 7-12 attendance centers have been designated as 'High Performing' schools as outlined and defined in the Iowa School Performance Profile for the purposes of federal and state accountability standards.
There are multiple data sets that are used to determine a schools overall ranking; and each indicator is weighted based on guidelines determined by the Department of Education which are in alignment with the federal 'Every Student Succeeds Act'. While it is true a large portion of the ranking is tied back to the ISASP test that was taken for the first time last year, it is not all about proficiency scores. Rankings are determined by measuring participation rate, academic achievement (includes proficiency and average scale score), student growth, progress toward English language proficiency (those who's native language isn't English), conditions toward learning, and at the high school level; graduation rate.
Truth be told, we didn't really know what to expect when anticipating these results. This past April was the first time we gave the brand new Iowa Statewide Assessment of Student Progress. A significant departure from the previous 'fill in the bubble' Iowa Assessments, we were all told the test would be more difficult, of higher rigor, and more closely aligned to the Iowa Core Academic Standards. When we asked how best to prepare our students for the test, the only answer was to make sure we were teaching the standards at levels that asked them [students] to do much more than simply memorize or recall answers. So we did. Administered completely online, students were now asked to do much more than simply fill in a bubble. They had to reason, explain, and even defend their answers. When administering the tests, we were surprised to find that some portions of the test took much longer than anticipated. So it was with some trepidation we first received the results this fall. Indeed we were pleasantly surprised!
As you can see from the table here, the top two tiers of ratings; High Performing and Exceptional comprise only 17.1% of all schools in Iowa. What is even more exciting for me is to see the growth that has occurred over the years since this system has been in place. In the years since the Iowa Report Card or Iowa School Performance Profile has been utilized, our elementary attendance center has increased their raw score year after year. This is a true testament to the hard work of everyone involved, their diligence in ensuring each student is exposed to high quality instruction that is aligned to the content standards, and most importantly; the work that is being done with regard to professional development is truly paying off. The same is true with regard to our 7-12 grade attendance center. There is no doubt what we are doing is working.
Finally, it's important to provide some context in these scores because invariably we need to know how we stack up. For example, if everyone is 'High Performing', what is the point? I do encourage you to go to the website and see the results for yourself. If you have questions, please don't hesitate to reach out. There is no doubt we have room to grow and will be taking a deeper dive in the coming weeks to highlight our areas for potential growth and target them for improvement. That said, in a comparison of the 23 conference elementary schools included in my analysis, Hudson Elementary ranked 6th. In a comparison of 16 high schools in the conference, Hudson High School ranked...1st.
It's good to be a Pirate!
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