The new Iowa School Performance Profiles show more than half of the schools in the state are in the top three designations of exceptional, high performing and commendable. The Department of Education’s Jay Pennington says you can go online and find your school and then see how things are handled locally.
“Local context and conversation and information about what’s happening with that school is critical in understanding what the data are telling you, but also what folks within that school are really doing to address or celebrate, in some cases, the good work of educators within that building,” he says.
Pennington says there are many positives in the information released Thursday. “We see that proficiency rates are up in both English language arts, and a nice increase in mathematics,” Pennington says. “We see that participation rates are up as well. So more kids are participating in the assessment, which is important, you know, coming out of the pandemic.”
At the same time there are areas of concern.”Things like, you know, attendance is down slightly, the percent of students that are chronically absent, so they’re missing a significant portion of the school year, those numbers are up. That’s both something that we’re seeing locally, but also a national phenomenon,” Pennington says. “And then we do you see some areas like a slight decline in the number of kids that are actually going on and enrolling in college after leaving high school.”
There are 468 total schools currently identified in need of targeted assistance and support, with nearly half having issues with students with disabilities. “You know, we’re seeing about the same number of schools that are in need of targeted supports than we did a few years ago, before the pandemic,” he says. “And really what that means is, you know, that student group in that school is underperforming, and schools need to build improvement efforts in order to address that particular student group that’s struggling.”
Pennington says many schools have addressed past issues. He says there is a slight increase in the number of schools moving from the lower half to the upper half of the ratings profiles. Pennington encourages parents and others to check out the Iowa school performance profiles on the Department of Education’s website.