I enjoyed Checker's recent piece on school report cards. [See http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=31#438] But he neglected two big issues:
First, the need for huge amounts of PUBLICITY to make parents aware that these report cards even exist. I fear that conservative backers of accountability reports (including the Bush Administration) mistakenly assume, like the movie "Field of Dreams," that "if we build it, they will come." I doubt it. Research we did with Education Week a few years ago, since confirmed by other research in Indiana and Kansas City, shows that few parents even knew that their district or state already was publishing accountability reports. Indeed, about half of teachers and principals didn't know about these tools. Our report, Reporting Results: What the Public Wants to Know about Schools, can be found at http://www.ksaplus.com/ksa/EdWeek%20Results.pdf. Though three years old, its findings remain very relevant.
Second, the need to TRAIN parents in using these reports. Based on our experience in districts and states, many parents will be clueless about how to use these tools even when they have them in hand. Using the reports to help choose a better school is the obvious option, but unless they have a charter or voucher option or can afford to move, most parents don't have much choice. They're stuck where they are. That's why we're spending so much time in cities like Kansas City and Portland and states like Kentucky - training parents how to use these reports as levers to pressure their current schools' principals, teachers, school board, etc. to make improvements.
Through our partnership with the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence, Parent Leadership Associates is publishing two guides to help parents understand the achievement gaps - plus collect and analyze their own school's data and use it to keep the pressure on for improvements.
A sample copy of a performance report that KSA-Plus Communications is doing in Kansas City (through the Kauffman Foundation and with the support of several CBOs) can be found at http://www.ksaplus.com/ksa/resourcepop4.html. The report will be accompanied by lots of parent leadership training in using this tool, plus PR to make the community aware of it.
We're doing these reports in collaboration with School Wise Press, a California-based company that specializes in such school reporting. Unlike GreatSchools.net and JFTK, which I agree do a great job, SWP's offerings feature a printable version, which makes sense for the many parents (maybe the majority) who still aren't comfortable with the Web. You might want to check out some of SWP's work at http://www.schoolwisepress.com/SARC/sarcsrvc_sam2.html.
Thanks for addressing this issue. I agree that the reporting requirements of NCLB are potentially the law's most far-reaching contribution...but only if more parents know about them and get a lot smarter about how to use this lever.
Adam Kernan-Schloss
President, KSA-Plus Communications
Co-Founder, Parent Leadership Associates