State offers new glimpse into school data through redesigned report card

Kentucky’s Department of Education unveiled a redesigned online tool Friday meant to give parents a clearer look at data on school demographics, academic performance, student safety and other measures of school success.

Working with the tech solutions firm BrightBytes, the department launched its new School Report Card, which offers interactive charts and graphs to help visualize school data. It’s available online at raisethebar.education.ky.gov.

“It’s really about making it parent-friendly,” said DeDe Conner, director of school data services for the Kentucky Department of Education during a virtual media briefing Friday. “It’s much more visual than you’ve seen our previous cards be.”

The School Report Card includes the latest available assessment data from the 2017-18 school year released last fall. Each state was required to create an online school report card following the enactment of the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015.

According to the department, the School Report Card includes school demographics, test performance, teacher qualifications, student safety, parental involvement and other information. The report card is just one component in a broader “suite” of digital tools, such as a school and district comparison tool, a student and parent portal and research data.

“We are working hard to ensure that Kentucky parents and educators have great tools available to see and understand the performance of our schools,” Education Commissioner Wayne Lewis said in a news release. “We are excited to offer this suite that will help everyone from parents to policymakers determine their school and district’s strengths, weaknesses and needs.”

The School Report Card offers a look at both overall and specific school and district data.

By searching for their child’s school or district name, parents can view information across seven broad categories, such as academic performance, educational opportunity or school safety. Parents can get more specific information by clicking the blue subheadings under each category.

Information on “financial transparency,” which refers to how equitable spending is within a school or district, won’t be available until the spring, according to the report card.

“We are currently in the process of working on that now and that’ll be available later on in 2019,” said Glen Zollman, a client success partner with BrightBytes, during the briefing Friday.

Going forward, Zollman said the department will focus on improving the tool’s data visualization even further. That means finding more creative ways to display information other than the many tables the website uses.

“That’s one area that we know we’re going to work to improve on and add more of these kind of visualizations,” he said.

Elisa Beth Brown, director of instructional programs for the Bowling Green Independent School District, uses data everyday on the job. She sees the new school report card as a positive.

“I think it’s more user-friendly and more robust than the previous school report card,” she said Monday. “It’s giving you the tools to look at the data in multiple ways.”

This article is provided via the Kentucky Press News Service.

This story was originally published January 22, 2019 at 12:25 PM.