• Significant Attributes of Indicators
• Information from Indicators
• Examples of Indicators
• Linkages between Indicators
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Significant Attributes of Indicators

• The indicators were developed by community leaders, principals, school board members, superintendents, and teachers from across the state.

• They are grouped into Sections such as School Completion, Academic Preparation, and School Safety to provide a meaningful framework for the performance measures.

• They include both school indicators, which measure performance in areas that can be directly affected by schools and school systems, and community indicators, which measure how well the community is working to improve the quality of education.

• They were produced from data that came from a variety of sources, including the Department of Education, Board of Regents, the Department of Health, the US Census Bureau, school systems and schools, and many other agencies.

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Information from Indicators

• The score for each indicator is one way to look at performance. For example, in the Section on School Safety the scores show the numbers of students with violations involving drugs, violence, weapons, and the destruction of school property. Indicator scores can identify possible areas for concern.

• Arrows, which show two-year trends, allow comparisons to the school or system’s performance in the previous year.

• A five-star rating system compares scores for each indicator to scores of similar schools or school systems. Since the method of clustering has changed, this year’s stars should not be compared to last year’s. More than three stars means better than average performance. Three stars means performance is about average; fewer than three stars means below average performance. For indicators where lower scores are better, such as dropout rates, more stars means lower dropout rates.

• A five-check rating system compares scores for each indicator to scores of schools and school systems across the state. Except that the comparison group is different, this is like the five-star system. The Georgia median provides an additional comparison to the state.

• Some indicator scores provide national and state comparisons. Scores can be compared to national means and quartiles for norm-referenced tests (NRT) and SAT data. Performance on curriculum-based assessments (CBAs) show the percentage of students that met state goals or quality standards.

• Comparisons of scores can be made across indicators in specific areas of interest. For example, in an Elementary School Report you will find measures of performance on Reading: (1) from NRTs that provide national comparisons, (2) from CBAs that focus on the Georgia curriculum, and (3) from desegregation of NRT data by race to show gaps between scores of white and black students.

• Comparisons of scores can be made from one school level to the next in a system report. For example, you can compare the number of students missing 10 or more days at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. A system that reduces absenteeism at the high school level would want to explore possible causes, which could range from chronically absent students dropping out to an effective attendance incentive program.

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Examples of Indicators

Thirty-six percent of the 3rd graders in this school are scoring in the top quarter of the norm group on the NRT in math. The average percentage scoring in the top quarter nationally is 25%. The 2 arrows show that compared to last year the school has improved by more than 5 percentage points on this indicator. The 5 stars show that the score for this indicator is in the top 20% of the similar schools in the cluster. Comparison to the state is shown graphically by the 4 checks, indicating that the score is in the top 40% of elementary schools in the state. The score is above the state median.

Ninety percent of the 11th graders in this school are passing the graduation test in English. The down arrow shows that compared to last year the school's performance has declined more than 2 percentage points. The 2 stars show that the score for this indicator is in the lower 40% of similar schools in the cluster. While the school is performing below average compared to similar school in the cluster, the 3 checks show that it is performing in the middle range compared to all high schools in the state. The score is the same as the state median.

Indicators showing racial gaps can be used to focus concern and reduce these gaps. They are shown by percentage point differences (white% minus black%). Indicators with a ^{^} denote that lower absolute scores, such as for racial gap indicators, are better. A score closer to zero indicates less difference between white and black student performance. To determine which race is faring better for a given indicator, consider the type of indicator. In the example above, the racial gap is 42.8 for test scores in reading. This means that 42.8% more 8^th grade white students scored above the national average in reading than did black students. However, if the score is negative (i.e., -42.8), that means that blacks scored better than whites.

For an indicator where low scores are better, the racial gap could be 2.5 for overage students in the fifth grade. This means that there are 2.5% more white students than there are black students who are overage in 5th grade. Since this indicator works in the reverse direction where low scores are better, black students are faring better than white students.

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Linkages Between Indicators

Indicators should not be considered in isolation. For example, low test results in eighth grade math in one section could be related to poor attendance for middle school students or lack of parental involvement shown in other sections. Finding meaningful linkages between indicators for a given data set may require collective brainstorming or assistance from others from outside the school such as educators from similar schools that performed well on those indicators.

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