Accountability and Assistance Levels: All Massachusetts schools and districts with sufficient data are classified into one of five accountability and assistance levels (1-5), with the highest performing in Level 1 and lowest performing in Level 5. In general, a district is classified into the level of its lowest performing school, unless the district was independently classified into Level 4 or 5 as a result of action by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. Schools and districts that administered the Next Generation MCAS assessment in grades 3-8 in 2017 have not been placed into Levels 1-3 on the basis of their assessment results, but may have been assigned an accountability an assistance level (3-5) for other reasons, as noted on this report.

School Percentiles: A school percentile between 1 and 99 is reported for schools with at least four years of data. This number is an indication of the school's overall performance relative to other schools that serve the same or similar grades. School percentiles were not calculated for schools that administered the Next Generation MCAS assessment in grades 3-8 in spring 2017.

Progress and Performance Index (PPI): The PPI combines information about narrowing proficiency gaps, growth, and graduation and dropout rates over multiple years into a single number. All districts, schools, and student subgroups receive an annual PPI based on improvement over a two-year period and a cumulative PPI (shown above) between 0 and 100 based on four years of data. For a group to be considered to be making progress toward narrowing proficiency gaps, its cumulative PPI must be 75 or higher. Annual and cumulative PPIs were not calculated for schools and districts that administered the Next Generation MCAS assessment in grades 3-8 in spring 2017.