The Education Consumers Foundation has created a new online chart

Thursday August 19, 2010
The chart enables parents, policymakers, and the public to compare their local schools.

The Education Consumers Foundation, an East Tennessee Foundation supporting organization, has created a new on-line chart that enables parents, policymakers, and the public to compare their local schools to each other, to state averages, and to schools across Tennessee.

The charts show how each school in grades K-8 stands with respect to both average student achievement (TCAP scores) and annual growth in student achievement (TVAAS scores). At the high school level, the points of comparison are the ACT composite scores and cumulative achievement gain.

ECF's new "Birdshot Chart"was created in response to a problem raised by parents: How can we easily see which are the best local schools?

Parents are accustomed to looking at achievement scores, such as those from the TCAP and ACT tests, in order to see whether their students are performing at grade level. Many are also accustomed to seeing achievement-growth data from Tennessee's value-added assessment system (TVAAS). But, there was no way to see a "snapshot" of both at once.

The Birdshot Chart allows parents and interested others to do exactly that.

By simply selecting the elementary, middle, or high schools they wish to review, any user can instantly compare local schools to each other and to state averages in an intuitive, easy-to-understand format. They can see which schools are doing the best job of lifting student achievement - regardless of economic advantage or disadvantage--and which have the most students achieving at a high level.

The new chart also allows users to identify high poverty schools, view each school's state-assigned letter grade for recent performance, and find other useful descriptors. All charts can be customized to the user's schools of interest and printed in color.

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