On Friday, the Iowa Department of Education released new data on student proficiency rates and growth to the public. This report, called the Attendance Center Rankings, fulfills a legislative requirement to develop a system for evaluating and ranking Iowa public schools based on their performance on nine specific measures. The report released Friday features two of the nine variables, reading and math proficiency and growth toward college and career readiness.
This information was released to Iowa superintendents last week to provide time for analysis of data prior to releasing the information to the public. In Ottumwa, “we looked at all the data and what we felt our staff and community would be most interested in,” said Superintendent Davis Eidahl. The result was four charts comparing school districts in and bordering Wapello County.
The data used measures student proficiency in grades 3-8 and grade 11. According to Eidahl, there have been tremendous gains in achievement in grades 9 and 10 in the past two years. “When you compare where we were three years ago, accelerated achievement is being experienced in classrooms across the district,” he said. “I’m pleased with the growth variable and how it represents how our district is moving to prepare each and every learner for a successful post-secondary transition.
“The district looks forward to the next release in the fall of 2015, when additional variables such as graduation rate, parent involvement, attendance, etc. will be shared.
