Notes from the Field
Trying To Make Sense of District Data
Submitted by Timothy Boyle on July 7, 2011
We knew when Imagine 2014 was rolled out that the School District of Philadelphia was headed for a serious shake-up. There was a plan in place for, a theory of action on; the interventions schools that fared the worst on the PSSA (low-achieving in the parlance of our times) would receive. The School Performance Index was supposed to be the metric by which turnarounds would be judged. Or so we thought.
The School Performance Index results came out, and speculation about which schools would be turned around began. Receiving a score of 10:10 meant a school was performing the worst compared to demographically similar schools, as well as the District schools as a whole. All schools rated 10:8 or worse made the Renaissance or Alert school list. Of the original 10:10 schools, only five became charters or promise academies. The other five schools were relegated to the Alert list. Thirteen schools were turned around however. Seven of the
