One-Star Schools Outnumber 5 Star Schools in RIDE’s 2019 Schools Report Card Released Today
GoLocalProv News Team
One-Star Schools Outnumber 5 Star Schools in RIDE’s 2019 Schools Report Card Released Today
Ranging from 1 to 5 stars, the Star Rating is intended to simplify and summarize overall school performance -- and for 2019, one-star schools in Rhode Island outnumbered 5-star schools.
SLIDES: Five Things to Know About This Year's Report Card -- Including Rankings -- BELOW
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST“Rhode Island’s accountability system takes a holistic look at school performance, including traditional measures like test scores and graduation rates, and also emphasizing school culture and student learning experiences. This approach holds schools accountable for a broader range of measures, and pushes all communities to focus on areas for improvement,” said Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green. “Every school and every community has work to do to improve outcomes for all students.”
This is the second year of Rhode Island’s Star Rating system, developed to bring increased transparency and accessibility to school performance data under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the federal education law.
“It’s not enough to make data transparent. We need to consistently look for new ways to communicate and share the data so that it’s accessible and actionable for families and communities,” Infante-Green added.
“I encourage and expect districts to talk about these results with students, families, and school teams, and work together to identify how the data will inform our collective work moving forward.”
5 Things to Know about RIDE’s 2019 School Accountability Report Card
How Many 5 Star Schools
Statewide, there are 22 5-star schools, 49 4-star schools, 134 3-star schools, 59 2-star schools, and 35 1-star schools.
Providence Schools
Within the 1-star category are 22 schools identified for Comprehensive Support and Improvement (CSI), a federal designation for a state’s lowest-performing schools.
Half of those schools are located in Providence.
CSI schools are eligible for additional federal funding to support school improvement plans, which are required and must be developed with the help of a Community Advisory Board (CAB). Rhode Island notably created CABs in the ESSA State Plan with the explicit purpose of engaging families and community members in the school improvement process.
Resources for Families
In releasing this year’s results, RIDE also sent resources to principals to help them communicate results with families, including a fact sheet, a tutorial video on how to navigate the Report Card platform, and a video that explains the measures included in school accountability.
Both videos are available in English and in Spanish on RIDE’s YouTube channel.
2 New Measures This Year
New this year are two measures at the high school level:
* Commissioner’s Seal, which measures the percentage of high school graduates demonstrating high school proficiency in both ELA and mathematics on the SAT, PSAT, ACT, or approved Advanced Placement test.
This measure is designed, in part, to call attention to the “honesty gap” in the number of students graduating high school without meeting expectations in ELA and math assessments.
* Postsecondary Success, which measures the percentage of high school graduates earning college credits, Advanced Placement credits, or industry-recognized credentials.
New Measure Next Year
Another additional measure, science proficiency, will be added to accountability starting in 2021. Rhode Island first did a field test of the Next Generation Science Assessment in 2018, and expanded to all students in grades 5, 8, and 11 in 2019.
This year’s results were also published in the Report Card platform today, with 31 percent of students statewide meeting or exceeding expectations.
