Massachusetts State Report Card

Introduction

On January 8, 2002, President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 into law. The law calls for sweeping changes in public education. Among these is a new federal requirement that all states and school districts in receipt of Title I assistance must, by 2003, issue annual “report cards” to parents. The purpose of the report card is to give parents information about their child’s school in terms of academic achievement and the professional qualifications of its teachers. By making this information available each year, parents will learn how their school is doing, what its goals are, and what they can do to work more effectively with their teachers and administrators. In addition to sharing good news, the report card helps parents make informed decisions about what to do in the event that their school is determined to be “in need of improvement,” based on annual test results, such as the Massachusetts Comprehensive Achievement System (MCAS).

Attached is our state’s first “report card.” The information contained is divided into three parts.

Part I: Enrollment and Teacher Quality

Part II: School Achievement in Mathematics and Reading

Part III: School Performance Ratings

Part I provides enrollment statistics for Massachusetts. This section also includes the percentage of Massachusetts teachers licensed in core academic subjects. The core subjects as defined under NCLB are: Generalists, Foreign Languages, English Language Learner, Arts, Reading, English Language Arts, History/Social Studies, Science, Mathematics, Civics/Government/Political Science/Political Philosophy, and Business/Economics. This information was collected in the School System Summary Report, October 1, 2002. A new system for collecting teacher data, the Annual District and School Staffing Report is currently being designed for next year’s state report card. Data collection with this new system will begin in October so that by the spring of 2004, we will be able to furnish a more detailed account of the percentages of licensed and highly qualified teachers in each district. Readers interested in learning more about the teacher qualifications in individual school districts for 2003 may do so by contacting the superintendent’s office in the community of interest.

No Child Left Behind requires that test results for reading and mathematics be reported annually. The information contained in Part II summarizes how the state did on the last round of MCAS examinations. The data is broken down by grade level, subject area, and the performances of different subgroups, or learning populations in the state such as limited English proficient students or students with disabilities. This information is similar to what parents received about their child’s MCAS scores in November. These data have been added together to provide a snapshot of how the students in Massachusetts have performed as a whole.

Part III provides information about Massachusetts schools in need of improvement. The "Proficiency Index" (PI) scores for Mathematics and English Language Arts are part of Massachusetts’ School Performance Rating system. This system has been set up to comply with the accountability provisions of No Child Left Behind which require, among other things, that each school make adequate yearly progress (AYP) toward meeting a national goal of all students being “proficient” in mathematics and English by the year 2013-2014. The Proficiency scores and AYP ratings in the student achievement data are meant to signal whether or not our schools are on target to meet this goal or whether it has fallen behind and is “in need of improvement.”

As suggested earlier, the information provided in our report card is designed to give you an update on how well we are doing as we move toward meeting the state and national achievement goals and qualification standards for teachers and students.