DOE Unveils Database on Student Achievement
RSSBy Debra Lau Whelan -- School Library Journal, 02/05/2008
How is your state doing when it comes to closing the achievement gap? The U. S. Department of Education has unveiled a new database designed to show how schools across the country are performing on their math and reading scores, as well as their high school graduation rates.
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings says the so-called National Dashboards—one for each state and the District of Columbia—will help parents and policymakers better understand how states stack up against each other in terms of academic performance. That way, trouble or progress toward meeting the federal goals outlined under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) can be identified earlier.
It’s been six years since passage of NCLB, and there are six more years left until 2014, when school’s must meet the law’s goal of having students perform at grade level or better on reading and math scores.
“We have collected more data than ever before about the academic performance of our students and schools,” says the Department of Education’s (DOE) report, Mapping America’s Educational Progress 2008. [http://www.ed.gov/print/nclb/accountability/results/progress/nation.html] “This information enables all of us to chart where we are as individual states and as a nation and to map a course of action for future progress.”
Filled with graphics, the two-page reports include pass rates on national and state reading and math exams for fourth- and eighth-graders, national and state graduation rates and the number of schools meeting or falling short of No Child Left Behind goals. It also includes schools that are making adequate yearly progress and have highly qualified teachers, as well as parents who are taking advantage of tutoring and choice options.
The DOE’s user-friendly dashboards are just one of several efforts by education experts to repackage huge amounts of data on school achievement. The Southern Regional Education Board, an Atlanta-based nonprofit group that works with 16 states, plans to release state "score cards."
The dashboards can be found at http://www.ed.gov/nclb/accountability/results/progress.www.ed.gov/nclb/accountability/results/progress
