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State Report Card
Learning Support IndicatorsSelect a school level to view and/or print the learning-support indicator charts in PDF.
WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING AT These three lists – one for each school level (high school, middle school, elementary school) – show the set of “learning-support indicators” for each school. The lists are ranked by one of the indicators: Elementary and Middle Schools are ranked by Attendance; High Schools are ranked by Graduation Rate. The lists also show the statewide scores for each indicator, by school level; the range of scores for each indicator, and the 2003 target for either the attendance indicators (elementary and middle schools) or the graduation rate (high schools). Each learning-support indicator is a numeric score (0 – 100) that provides information about a school and how it operates. These learning-support indicators are reported for each school:
Three of the indicators are reported as percentages. The Attendance Rate shows, during the 2002-03 school year, how many days children in each school were present – that is, not absent because of illness, truancy, out-of-school suspensions, or other situations such as family emergencies. The Health Education Assessment shows what percentage of the children in each school achieved proficiency, over the past three years, on the state health-education assessments. The graduation rate shows the percentage of students who graduated from school in 2003. (The graduation rate is calculated using four years of data; for the Class of 2003, it takes into account how many students dropped out of that class during each of the four years of high school.) The three other learning-support indicators are index scores derived from the 2003 SALT Survey. Each score is based on responses to numerous questions on the surveys. The school-climate indicator is based on parent, student, and teacher surveys; the parental-involvement indicator is based on the parent and teacher surveys; the instruction indicator is based on the teacher surveys. WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR Test scores are useful for telling us what students have learned and which students have learned, but the scores do not tell us about the conditions in a school that contribute to improved student learning. The learning-support indicators give us information that helps educators, their school-improvement teams, and the school communities decide what teaching practices, school structures, and cultures should change in order to improve learning. The learning-support indicators are meant to begin discussions in schools and districts about what should be done to provide the conditions in which students will be able to learn better. For the Graduation Rate Indicator, the goal for the 2002-03 school year was 71.4%. The long-term goal for the Graduation Rate is 95%, matching the goal established by the R.I. Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education that no more than 5% of all students will drop out of any high school. For Attendance Rate, the current goal is 90%, and the long-term goal is 95%, meaning that no more than 5% of the school year should be lost because of illness, suspensions, truancy, and other absences. The interim goal for the Health Education Assessment is 50% – half the students in each school meeting or exceeding the standard across the past three years of testing data. Students are more likely to make healthy decisions and to avoid risky behavior when they are equipped with the knowledge and skills to do so. The other three learning-support indicators – school climate, parental involvement, and instruction – are derived from responses to the SALT Survey, which is administered to all parents, teachers, and students. Many questions from the survey go into the calculation of each indicator. (For more detailed information, go to Technical Bulletins.) The School Climate Indicator concerns such aspects of school life as school safety, expectations that students have for themselves and that teachers have for their students, and respectful relationships between teachers and students. This indicator also denotes whether student behavior is disruptive, whether teachers are invested in the success of their students, and whether students know that they can approach someone in their school to discuss both academic and personal problems. The Parental Involvement Indicator denotes whether families are comfortable in school environments and are fully engaged in supporting their child’s learning by helping with homework, attending conferences, participating in school-improvement activities, and communicating with teachers. It also show whether the schools provide ongoing opportunities to communicate with parents and whether they are creative in their approaches to help reluctant families feel comfortable working with teachers. The Instruction Indicator shows whether standards-based and research-based instruction takes place in the school. It also shows whether teachers are well prepared to implement standards- and research-based instruction, and it denotes the barriers that teachers face or the support that they receive as they implement good instructional practices. The goal these three indicators – School Climate, Parental Involvement, and Instruction – is a score of 100.
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