State Report Card:
Using Information

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Learning Support Indicators

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WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING AT

These three lists 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
  • The 2007 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:

  • Attendance Rate
  • School Climate
  • Parental Involvement (and parent engagement)
  • Instruction
  • Graduation Rate (high schools only)

Two of the indicators are reported as percentages. The attendance rate shows, during the 2006-07 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 graduation rate shows the percentage of students who graduated from school in 2007. (The graduation rate is calculated using four years of data when available; for the Class of 2007, 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 2007 SALT Survey. Each score is based on responses to numerous questions on the surveys.

  • The school-climate indicator is based on parent, student, and teachers 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 2006-07 school year was 75.3%. The long-term goal for the Graduation Rate is 95%, matching the goal established by the 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 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 shows 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 for these three indicators—School Climate, Parental Involvement, and Instruction—is a score of 100.

For more detailed information, see the Technical Bulletin.

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