2012 School Report Cards Released (public schools, costs, assessment)

[CHTransplant]

We get a lot of inquiries in this forum for information about local schools. One common response is to direct folks to the School Report Cards provided by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. For those interested, the 2012 report cards were released late last week, providing updated information on all public schools in the state:

Parents and interested citizens looking for a one-stop information source on their local public schools need look no further than the NC School Report Cards website, which has just been updated to reflect 2011-12 school-year data.

The 2012 North Carolina School Report Cards, available online at www.ncreportcards.org, are in the 11th year of publication. The site features a collection of information about student performance and attendance, class size, school safety, teacher quality and classroom technology. The School Report Cards website also features data from the district and state levels for comparison purposes.

The report cards can be accessed at NC School Report Cards

[ucctgg]

The Department of Public Instruction must spend a Huge amount of money compiling and analyzing this data. And then there's the time and money spent in each school to provide this information. Here's a radical idea: spend more on instruction and less on evaluation. But you know the chance of that ever happening again.

[evaofnc]

I doubt it costs that much. All of this data gets collected electronically and is sitting in a database anyway so it's just a matter of having it on the website.

[lamishra]

With the right software program, analyzing data is a breeze. It doesn't take much time at all.
Being able to evaluate data like this is a very valuable tool.

[ucctgg]

My original point was that the data are not that useful. We over-analyze everything these days -- test results, economic data, election polling to name a few. Then everything is put in a top ten or bottom ten list. Enough already. By the way, I am not a Luddite. I taught in high schools for twelve years before becoming a database programmer.

[BoBromhal]

ncreportcards beats the heck out of mad moms on greatschools.

has anybody pored over the data already to determine how well the choice program is doing???

[azwildcatfan]

Thanks for posting the link!

[ducter]

Originally Posted by ucctgg

My original point was that the data are not that useful. We over-analyze everything these days -- test results, economic data, election polling to name a few. Then everything is put in a top ten or bottom ten list. Enough already. By the way, I am not a Luddite. I taught in high schools for twelve years before becoming a database programmer.

When many kids go to different schools every year, then its even harder to compare last years data to the next.

[michgc]

Originally Posted by ucctgg

The Department of Public Instruction must spend a Huge amount of money compiling and analyzing this data. And then there's the time and money spent in each school to provide this information. Here's a radical idea: spend more on instruction and less on evaluation. But you know the chance of that ever happening again.

But how do they know if the instruction is working if they don't evaluate them? It is pretty common for schools in every state to report the results of the state tests that they give. Otherwise, they would not give assessments. If they don't give them, they have no idea if their students are improving or declining, how they compare to other schools in their district and state, how various subgroups fare, etc. Yes, a lot of money is spent on assessment and evaluation, but without it, how would they know if they are meeting their educational goals?

[evaofnc]

Originally Posted by BoBromhal

ncreportcards beats the heck out of mad moms on greatschools.

lol if you believed everyone on that site, you'd think every school in the nation was going to hell in a hand basket AND was the greatest school to ever grace our lands. Makes for an entertaining read