Average can be a good thing. Ms. Brenda Schrantz, Special Programs and Gifted Education Coordinator for School District 56, came before the Board of Trustees at last night’s meeting with what she called exciting news.
On the surface and to the untrained eye the news did not appear all that exciting. The data that makes up the report cards for individual schools and for the district as a whole was presented and showed a rating of ‘Average’.
But, Ms. Schrantz, asked the Board to look at the numbers. She pointed out that the ratings are divided into two overall categories: Absolute and Growth. Absolute shows the actual score while the Growth score shows progress toward goals.
In the Absolute score, the Index for 2011 was 2.57. In 2012 that same score was 2.87. For 2013 the Absolute Index for School District 56 comes in at 3.01.
Schrantz told the Board that individual schools and even districts across the state have achieved marks of ‘Excellent’ for one year only to fall back to ‘Below Average’ in subsequent years. The steady, sustained growth shown in the data for District 56, she said is much preferred, she said, to short lived spike in ratings.
She provided the Board with the data supplied by State Department of Education but reiterated that the school report card was, when viewed in the big picture sense, very good news.