Vision:
The North Dakota Department of Public Instruction (NDDPI) School Accountability Report Cards and Dashboard provide accessible, meaningful, and actionable information to educators, families, and communities about public schools across the state. The reported measures were selected to both meet federal requirements and address the needs and desires of diverse stakeholders, who contributed to the design and implementation of the new reports. North Dakota public education is rooted firmly in the belief that all schools should be engaged in a cycle of continuous improvement. The information provided by the School Accountability Report Cards highlights areas of strength and celebration, while also identifying room for growth and improvement.
Accountability Indicators:
These measures were selected by local stakeholders to align with the core value that all students should graduate from North Dakota schools Choice Ready ; meaning they have the skills, knowledge, and opportunities to successfully transition into a post-secondary pathway of their choosing (e.g., college, workforce, military). The accountability indicators act as checkpoints to ensure that schools are serving students in a variety of areas, with the ultimate goal of cultivating Choice Ready graduates.
- Graduation Rate: High school graduation is an important milestone for students, enabling them to choose a path aligned with their skills and passions. This measure examines the four-year cohort graduation rate for students.
- Completer Rate: Students take multiple pathways to post-secondary success, including attainment of a GED. This measure recognizes all students graduating with a high school diploma in a given school year and those completing GED requirements prior to age 22.
- Growth in ELA and Math: Students demonstrate academic success in multiple ways. The growth measure examines how schools are helping student get - or stay - on track to ensure readiness for post-secondary success.
- English Learner Proficiency (ELP) Growth: The ELP measure provides valuable information on how schools are supporting English Learners in attainment of English proficiency within anticipated timeframes.
- Student Engagement: Each year, students complete a Student Engagement Survey to provide valuable feedback about their learning experiences. This measure highlights the degree to which students demonstrate three types of engagement: Committed, Compliant, and Disengaged. Beginning in 2021-2022 academic year, districts will receive full credit for Committed and half credit for Compliant.
- State Assessment Proficiency: Performance on annual assessments provides insight into student’s strengths and preparedness for the next course or grade. This measure highlights the percentage of students performing at proficient or advanced levels on state assessments.
- Choice Ready Rate: Readiness for post-secondary success is a core value for North Dakota public education. This measure celebrates the multiple pathways students take after graduation (college, workforce, military) and how schools are preparing students to have agency and choice in selection of their path.
- School Support: Federal law requires school accountability measures to identify categories of schools that necessitate additional support to meet improvement goals. These include Comprehensive Support and Targeted Support schools. However, North Dakota believes that all schools can improve and aims to provide support to all schools. Therefore, all schools across the state receive general support to aid in continuous improvement efforts, with additional supports provided to schools meeting specified criteria.
For additional information on each of these indicators, including calculation methods, data sources, and business rules, see the School Accountability Calculation.
Continuous Improvement:
All schools can improve. The School Accountability Report Cards are a useful tool to support educators in engaging in a cycle of continuous improvement. The report cards provide the following information to help schools identify improvement priorities. Accountability, Support, and Improvement resources and information can be found here: https://www.nd.gov/dpi/districtsschools/essa/accountability-support-improvement.
Accountability Pie: The “Accountability Pie” visually represents a school’s performance across all indicators. Each “slice” represents an indicator and the degree to which the school earned possible points. The “Room for Improvement” slice is comprised of all unattained points and may be used to identify improvement priorities. School Support: All schools receive tools to support improvement planning and efforts. NDDPI identifies two additional categories of support for schools meeting specific criteria based on accountability indicators. Schools identified for Comprehensive Support and Improvement (CSI) or Targeted Support and Improvement (TSI) receive additional services from NDDPI and federal funds to aid in specific interventions to improve student outcomes. Information on definitions, methodology, and exit criteria can be found on the NDDPI website at the links above. NDDPI has added a “Comparison Group” designation indicating whether performance is calculated based upon the following:
Current: Performance is based upon having at least 10 students for the given indicator in the current academic year. 3 Year Average: Performance is based upon adding the numerator and denominator for the measure from the last three years to achieve a total of at least 10 students. Suppressed (< 10): indicates that points for the indicator were equitably redistributed across the remaining indicators with at least 10 students due to there being less than 10 students in the last three academic years * A note regarding N-Size Rules and Point Redistribution:
Beginning in the 2023-2024 academic year, if the N-size for any of the ESSA accountability indicators for a school’s “All Students” subgroup is less than ten for a given indicator, NDDPI will use the numerator and denominator from the current year and each of the two years prior to determine the outcome for the indicator. The numerator and denominator from the three separate years will be added together. Since this process would be triggered by indicator, a school could have the process triggered for student achievement and choice ready, but not for student engagement. If a school has ten or more students per indicator, these schools will use the current year of data, and the calculations will run per the existing business rules.
Point redistribution maintains the principle that conducting equitable school accountability ratings requires a school to possess an adequate number of students to be assessed fairly and maintain s
Just as students’ report cards provide a snapshot of their school performance, North Dakota Accountability Report Cards provide a snapshot of how schools across the state are serving students in a variety of areas.
While no one report can tell the full story of North Dakota schools, the dashboard features information on important measures that inform stakeholders how to better support students.