Today, the NYC Department of Education (NYC DOE) released its 2011-12 Progress Reports for public schools serving grades K-8, including charter schools. Overall, charter schools’ grades are improved from the previous year. Close to half (46%) of all charter schools received an A grade, compared to 25% of public schools citywide.
As in previous years, the reports assign a letter grade to each school, based on student test scores, student progress, attendance, and “learning environment” survey results, all heavily weighted to account for differing student characteristics.
It is important to note that NYC DOE assigns letter grades from a fixed distribution, meaning it pre-determines how many of each grade will be assigned. Also remember that they are progress reports, with a heavy emphasis on how students at each school are progressing rather than their objective level of proficiency.
More information is available from GothamSchools and NYC DOE.
Among charter schools that received progress reports, grades were generally higher for schools affiliated with networks than independent charter schools. Charter school performance was also stronger among middle schools, and lower among schools with a K-8 grade configuration:
You can explore charter schools’ Progress Reports with the interactive tool below. Check boxes to change the filter, hover over a school’s bar to see more details, or click on a segment of a bar to see specific percentages.
