DETROIT – The Michigan Department of Education is rolling out a new tool for parents who want to know how their child's school is performing.
Here's the info from MDE:
Recommended Videos
Parents now have their own online dashboard that shows the performance of all K-12 public schools in Michigan and represents a new, improved level of transparency, the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) announced today.
The Parent Dashboard for School Transparency, available at www.MISchoolData.org/ParentDashboard, is a combined effort of MDE and the Center for Educational Performance and Information (CEPI) – based on significant parent feedback on its planning, content, and design.
After the State Board of Education (SBE) adopted the Parent Dashboard school transparency concept last summer, the website was unveiled at the monthly Board meeting today.
This Parent Dashboard is an integral component of the state’s Strategic Plan to make Michigan a Top 10 education state in 10 years. It builds on the Strategic Partnership with Parents, Families, and Community Services that encourages and promotes meaningful, authentic engagement with parents and families.
“Parents asked and we listened,” said State Superintendent Brian Whiston. “I’m very pleased to make the Parent Dashboard available to parents and other Michigan education stakeholders who want a more complete picture of how their local schools are serving children.”
Whiston emphasized that the dashboard provides school building-level data important to parents or caregivers wanting to check the performance of their child’s school.
CEPI Director Tom Howell said the Parent Dashboard shows nearly 20 separate measures that parents say are important to them.
“Families and others can use the dashboard to compare a school’s performance with the average performance of other, similar Michigan schools, including charter schools,” Howell said. “The site is user-friendly and can be accessed on any computer or mobile device.”
The dashboard allows deeper dives into the performance of various groups of students, such as gender, race, subject, and services to students, he added.
Today’s roll-out marks the first of three phases for the dashboard.
Phase One dashboard indicators or measures, now available, include:
- State assessment performance
- State assessment progress
- Graduation rate
- Advanced coursework (e.g. Advanced Placement, early middle college, International Baccalaureate (IB), dual enrollment, career/technical education postsecondary enrollment)
- On-track attendance
- English Learner progress
- Assessment participation
Additional Data
- School
- Student/staff ratio
- Student support staff
- Student transfers
- Student
- Transfers in and out
- Expulsion rate
- Dropout rate
- Attendance rate
- Graduation rate
- Dropout rate
- Postsecondary
- Enrollment
- Persistence
- Completion
“The State Board of Education wanted the Parent Dashboard because members believe that all Michigan residents have a right to easily see how well their schools are serving their children,” State Board Co-Presidents Casandra Ulbrich and Richard Zeile said in a joint statement. “The dashboard is just what we had in mind, and we appreciate the efforts of MDE, CEPI, and the parents and other stakeholders who were engaged in the development process.”
The board unanimously approved the dashboard concept in June 2017.
After the passage of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in December 2015, every state was given the opportunity to revise its accountability system to improve its schools and ensure students are college- and career-ready.
The SBE called for creation of the dashboard after thousands of education stakeholders asked for information that focuses on more than just test scores and is easier to navigate and understand.
ESSA work groups, parent focus and advisory groups, and parent surveys were used in the dashboard’s development.
The dashboard is designed to be a “living tool” that will be updated as new school data become available. It displays a rolling three years’ worth of data, when available.
The dashboard mostly uses data already collected from schools by CEPI and MDE, and stored at MISchoolData.org, and is part of a set of transparency tools that include a State Report Card required by ESSA; a School Budget and Salary/Compensation Report required by state law; and school, district and statewide data and reports at MISchoolData.org.
Dashboard visitors may use a search box or interactive Michigan map, designed especially for the dashboard, to find a school and compare it with state averages.
Future phases of the Parent Dashboard will include new data not previously reported for schools. Proposed categories include early learning access; access to technology; services to students with disabilities and English learners; and extracurricular activities.
The dashboard is available directly at www.MISchoolData.org/ParentDashboard. For more information and communication tools for sharing the Dashboard, visit www.michigan.gov/mde-ParentDashboard.