ILLUMINATING COLLEGE AND CAREER READINESS State Report Cards for Districts and Schools

1. ILLUMINATING COLLEGE AND CAREER READINESS State Report Cards for Districts and Schools

2. Objectives • Today’s webinar is designed to address several questions: • Why should your state incorporate college and career readiness (CCR) indicators into its district and school report cards? • What are CCR indicators and how can your state calculate them? • How can your state report CCR indicators to build understanding and inspire action among parents and the public? • We will be joined by Jon Gubera, Chief Accountability Officer, Indiana Department of Education. • We will also share a new sample College and Career Readiness Report Card that Achieve has developed.

3. WHY YOUR STATE SHOULD INCORPORATE CCR INDICATORS INTO DISTRICT AND SCHOOL REPORT CARDS

4. The College- and Career-Ready Agenda

5. Report cards are powerful levers to focus attention on CCR outcomes Value that students and parents place on CCR (e.g. entrance into entry-level, credit-bearing courses in post-secondary institutions without need for remediation) Focus attention on improving CCR outcomes Visibilityof states’ school and district report cards, particularly for parents

6. Achieve’s sample CCR report card • Achieve has designed a sample report card to jumpstart a conversation in ADP Network states about incorporating CCR indicators into district and school report cards. • Focuses on actionable data • Includes academic as well as broader indicators • Provides comparisons to other schools • Illuminates subgroup-level performance • Suggests questions that parents and the public can ask about student performance strategies • You will be able to find it here: http://www.achieve.org/adp-meetings-and-webinars

7. WHAT ARE CCR INDICATORS AND HOW CAN YOUR STATE CALCULATE THEM?

8. CCR indicators fall along a continuum of readiness Source: Adapted from Measures that Matter: Making College and Career Readiness the Mission of High Schools, Achieve and the Education Trust, 2008

9. EXAMPLE: Hawai’i College and Career Readiness Indicators Reports Source: Hawai’i P-20 in partnership with the Hawai’i Department of Education and University of Hawaii, http://www.p20hawaii.org/indicators_report.html

10. EXAMPLE: Virginia’s report cards include CTE and AP/dual enrollment indicators Source: Virginia School, School Division, and State Report Cards, https://p1pe.doe.virginia.gov/reportcard

11. Some guidance for calculating CCR indicators • The way states calculate CCR indicators matters for results • Numerators should be criterion-referenced where possible (e.g. “percent of students meeting the CCR benchmark” rather than average score) to better capture changes in readiness • Denominators should include all students, preferably all students in a graduating cohort (e.g. the 2012-13 graduating cohort rather than just students taking an assessment) to improve the stability of the indicator and its ability to portray the full picture of readiness for students in the school • This may mean that your state will need to work with data providers to refine the way they report data to you.

12. Definitions for CCR indicators Source: Achieve’s sample CCR report card

13. HOW CAN YOUR STATE REPORT CCR INDICATORS TO BUILD UNDERSTANDING AND INSPIRE ACTION AMONG PARENTS AND THE PUBLIC?

14. Reporting techniques can build understanding and raise the sense of urgency • State report cards use a number of strong techniques • Reporting the number of students as well as percentages • Building in comparisons - vertical comparisons such as school to district to state, horizontal comparisons such as school rankings or showing where the school’s performance lies upon a spectrum, or trends over time • Highlighting disparities among student groups • Some data and functionality may need to live online (along a spectrum of static to interactive reports) while others can translate to a paper report that might be given to parents

15. EXAMPLE: Texas uses student numbers to explain graduation rates Source: Texas 2010 Campus Graduation Summary, http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/cgi/sas/broker

16. Achieve’s sample CCR report card includes numbers of students participating in certain pathways Source: Achieve’s sample CCR report card

17. EXAMPLE: Indiana compares school to state and district performance Source: Indiana COMPASS reports, http://compass.doe.in.gov/dashboard/collegereadiness.aspx?type=state

18. EXAMPLE: Illinois shows where student performance falls along a spectrum Source: Illinois Interactive Report Card, http://iirc.niu.edu/

19. EXAMPLE: The Chicago Tribune uses a different method to show the distribution Source: Illinois Interactive Report Card, http://iirc.niu.edu/

20. EXAMPLE: Michigan displays ACT CCR benchmark data over time Source: Michigan School Data, https://www.mischooldata.org/CareerAndCollegeReadiness/ACTCollegeReadiness/Trend.aspx

21. EXAMPLE: greatschools.org shows three-year trend data for each subject

22. EXAMPLE: Indiana compares CCR outcomes across student groups Source: Indiana COMPASS reports, http://compass.doe.in.gov/dashboard/graduates.aspx?type=state

23. Presenting the data in context • Adding “judgments” can enhance understanding of performance patterns • Traffic-lighting – color-coding in categories such as red, yellow, green • Presenting performance data against goals and benchmarks • Ratings or classifications – these may include those used in the state accountability system, or be defined separately for measures used only in the report card

24. Achieve’s sample CCR report card includes judgments on annual improvement and against annual performance goals Source: Achieve’s sample CCR report card,

25. Engaging users in the process • Use focus groups and surveys to get feedback on report card prototypes, from the content to delivery. • Draw on these interactions to… • Identify priority questions • Narrow the list of priority indicators • Refine data display techniques • Develop narratives to explain performance or better define indicators • Clarify what can be interactive versus what should be in a static document

26. ILLUMINATING COLLEGE AND CAREER READINESS State Report Cards for Districts and Schools