Friday, November 9, 2018
Dear District Administrators and Choice School Administrators,
In preparation for Tuesday’s public release of final 2017-18 Accountability Report Cards, updated secure preliminary report cards are now available in SAFE. The updated report cards reflect any data changes resulting from an inquiry with the Office of Educational Accountability. If your school/district did not complete an inquiry with DPI, note that your score still could have changed - due to the fact that two of the four priority areas are normative measures, in which your score is relative to everyone else’s score. Please note that the most up-to-date report cards are time stamped for November 9, 2018 - updated even since those posted yesterday, on November 8.
You will also find a ^ notation on a school or district’s overall score if that score changed ten or more points since last year. This is a cautionary note to the reader, highlighting the fact that it is unclear whether the amount of change in accountability scores is reflective of the actual amount of change in performance. As always, we encourage a close review of priority area scores and other supplemental data for every report card.
Please note that these report cards are secure and as such, they may not be shared publicly, in any setting. This includes with parents, school board members, or a governing body. The secure versions in SAFE are meant to be used by school and district staff to inform your local school improvement planning efforts, and to prepare your local message in advance of the public release. The accountability embargo will be lifted on November 13th, with the public release, but the secure report cards should never be shared with unauthorized users because the secure report cards contain unredacted data.
DPI staff are providing a media briefing on Monday. Media that participate will receive DPI’s media release on embargo. DPI’s role in that briefing is to explain the summary data and any other report card trends. We expect DPI’s news release to go out around 8 a.m. on Tuesday, though the public report cards will be available before that, likely around 7 a.m. We will share the media release with you prior to Tuesday.
In addition to the secure report cards in SAFE, I’m sharing some resources we created to support you in the upcoming public release.
Embargoed Resources
- Summary statewide data for schools and districts - attached
- Report card data download files for schools and districts – attached
Non-embargoed Resources
- Sample parent letters, an interpretive guide and more technical walk-throughs of the report card calculations: https://dpi.wi.gov/accountability/resources
- Optional template for you to customize into a local report card, a place to provide additional information about accomplishments, opportunities, and outcomes in your school and district
As a final reminder, all attached resources with report card data are considered embargoed until Tuesday, November 13. No information is to be shared with anyone in the public until Tuesday. You may respond to media inquiries before Tuesday, provided the embargo is upheld. If you have any questions, please contact the Office of Educational Accountability at 608-267-1072.