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

Objectives 2 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.

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

4 The College- and Career-Ready Agenda Align high school standards with the demands of college and careers. Require students to take a college- and career-ready curriculum to earn a high school diploma. Build college-and career-ready measures into statewide high school assessment systems. Develop reporting and accountability systems that promote college and career readiness.

Report cards are powerful levers to focus attention on CCR outcomes 5 Visibility of states’ school and district report cards, particularly for parents 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

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: Achieve’s sample CCR report card 6

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

CCR indicators fall along a continuum of readiness 8 Progressing Toward CCRMeeting CCRExceeding CCR ACHIEVEMENT Students with “On-track to CCR” performance on assessments in middle and early in high school Students in a graduating cohort with “CCR” level of performance on state anchor or college readiness assessments Graduates with college- level performance on AP or IB exams COURSE COMPLETION AND SUCCESS High school students, by grade, with timely credit accumulation along a CCR course of study Students in a graduating cohort who complete a CCR course of study Graduates who have completed AP, IB, or dual enrollment courses ATTAINMENT 9 th grade students with “on- track” to graduation status based on grades and attendance in core courses in first grading period Students in a graduating cohort who receive a college and career ready diploma Students in a graduating cohort who receive industry certification Graduates who enroll into postsecondary education with no need for remediation Graduates who successfully complete at least one year of postsecondary education Source: Adapted from Measures that Matter: Making College and Career Readiness the Mission of High Schools, Achieve and the Education Trust, 2008

EXAMPLE: Hawai’i College and Career Readiness Indicators Reports 9 Source: Hawai’i P-20 in partnership with the Hawai’i Department of Education and University of Hawaii,

EXAMPLE: Virginia’s report cards include CTE and AP/dual enrollment indicators 10 Source: Virginia School, School Division, and State Report Cards,

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 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. Some guidance for calculating CCR indicators 11

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

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

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 Reporting techniques can build understanding and raise the sense of urgency 14

EXAMPLE: Texas uses student numbers to explain graduation rates 15 Source: Texas 2010 Campus Graduation Summary,

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

EXAMPLE: Indiana compares school to state and district performance 17 Source: Indiana COMPASS reports,

EXAMPLE: Illinois shows where student performance falls along a spectrum 18Source: Illinois Interactive Report Card,

EXAMPLE: The Chicago Tribune uses a different method to show the distribution 19Source: Illinois Interactive Report Card,

EXAMPLE: Michigan displays ACT CCR benchmark data over time 20 Source: Michigan School Data,

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

EXAMPLE: Indiana compares CCR outcomes across student groups 22 Source: Indiana COMPASS reports,

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 Presenting the data in context 23

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

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 Engaging users in the process 25

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