• 03 October 2024
Grading the Graders: Making Report Cards Work Better

Grading the Graders: Making Report Cards Work Better

Dec 12, 2017

Data transparency advocates argue that states aren’t fully utilizing students’ reports cards to communicate data and state education priorities more clearly to parents.

Schools nationwide aren’t doing enough to make report cards intelligible to their intended audience – parents, according to the Data Quality Campaign’s latest Show Me the Data scorecard.

Reviewers paid close attention to how states communicate student performance and their own policy priorities to parents through student report cards. To do so, they looked at two report cards – one each from an elementary school and high school – across the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Where can states make improvements? The Data Quality Campaign offers four general recommendations: simplify the language so everyone can understand, remove or clarify the meaning of acronyms, ensure disaggregated data on student performance is available (which is mandated under the Every Student Succeeds Act), and use report cards to relate the state’s education priorities to parents.

Tutors might take note and apply Data Quality Campaign’s recommendations to make their own progress reports more parent-friendly in representing student performance data.

banner image from https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/co/2017/12/11/can-colorado-do-a-better-job-of-sharing-school-report-cards-with-parents-data-advocates-say-yes/

Can Colorado do a better job of sharing school report cards with parents? Data advocates say yes. https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/co/2017/12/11/can-colorado-do-a-better-job-of-sharing-school-report-cards-with-parents-data-advocates-say-yes/

About The Author

Clark

Clark