Parents Deserve to Know: Student growth information
The FE Coalition wholeheartedly believes that public schools have a responsibility to deliver a high quality education to all students regardless of ethnicity, income level, and zip code.
But how can you as a parent know if your school is meeting this expectation?
As the Data Quality Campaign tells us, “Two measures of academic success that state leaders look at to see whether schools are helping students learn are “proficiency” and “growth.” Simply put, proficiency rates help leaders understand how many students met a specific target in a given year, while growth data helps leaders understand student change in performance over time; both of these measures are based on annual reading and math test scores.
Los padres are important stakeholders in the education community, and student academic growth data can greatly empower Hispanic parents and community members. How? Because with this information, the Hispanic community is better equipped to advocate for our students and schools by understanding how learning is changing over time.
As a result of the collective work of the FE Coalition and many other education advocacy groups from around the nation, 48 states + Washington D.C. have committed to including student growth data in report cards.
Because student growth data is important to faith leaders and members of the FE Coalition and NHCLC, we want to share with you a resource put together by the Data Quality Campaign and the National PTA that explains what parents need to know about student growth data and how they can use it.
Resource: Parents Deserve Clear Information
Thank you for being an engaged member of the FE Coalition and a partner in the ministry of advancing Hispanic student achievement.
Forward and higher in Christ,
Rev. Girien R. Salazar
Executive Director, FE Coalition
Proficiency vs. Growth
Proficiency rates provide information about whether students are mastering academic skills. For example, do students in this school understand fractions and other math concepts the way third graders should?
Student growth data describes change in learning over time. For example, did the students in this grade learn more, less, or the same about math this year?