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State Secrets: Report Card Maps

State Report Cards:
Overall Grade and Usability Scores

Updated September 5, 2024

Our researches gave each state’s report card website an overall grade A-F, as well as a usability score. Click on a state to learn more, or click on the grades and rankings to filter the maps. You can also download the entire data set and learn more about our methodology.

State Report Card Grades

How easy would it be for an interested parent or advocate to find key performance indicators and compare them pre- and post-COVID?

Overall Website Usability

How usable is each state’s online report card website or system?

Methodology

A team of five reviewers examined each state report card, looking for seven commonly used student performance indicators, including test scores, achievement growth, graduation rates, and absenteeism. For each of the seven indicators, reviewers rated how easy it was for them to find longitudinal data back to pre-COVID on a scale of Easily (3 points), With some difficulty (2 points), With too much difficulty (1 point), Could not find (0 points). The 21 possible points were converted to an A-F total grade. Separately, states were also rated on the overall usability of their report cards on a scale of Great, Good, Fair, Poor.

This report is part of CRPE’s State of the Student Report project, which updates the field annually on the state of public education and COVID-19 recovery efforts. It covers what students and families need, how school systems are responding, what barriers they face, and what promising innovations show the potential to propel a more just, responsive, and joyful public education system.

Connecticut

Grade: A
Website

The state has two sets of report cards (Connecticut Report Cards and EdSight); EdSight has better visuals, but Connecticut Report Cards was organized more intuitively.
Detailed student subgroup data is difficult to find; EdSight only emphasizes a combined “high needs” group.
Indicators are labeled by number, not title, making navigation unclear.

Delaware

Grade: A
Website

The landing page lacks substantive information and visual appeal.
The menus to find data are not intuitive.
School/district/state comparisons are available, but reviewers could not locate individual school comparisons, student group performance over time, or pre-COVID ELA/math growth data.

Hawaii

Grade: A
Website

The main report card that appears in web searched, “Strive HI,” provides longitudinal data only back to 2021.
Reviewers felt the Accountability Data Center (ADC) tool produced beautiful and easy-to-interpret graphs, even by individual student subgroups.
Some reviewers could not locate the ADC site.

Michigan

Grade: A
Website

The main school report card requires toggling across years, but the “Education Dashboard” allows for easier longitudinal trends. At the district/school level, we could not usually find subgroup data.
The site loads very slowly and was frustrating to navigate.
There do not appear to be landing pages for each school.

Oklahoma

Grade: A
Website

The landing page for each school gives clear summary ratings on the major indicators.
It’s easy to click through and get more details about subgroups or time trends.
There were many graphs and charts on each page, and reviewers felt some parents would be unsure which were most important.

Pennsylvania

Grade: A
Website

The landing page for each school offers a summary, but it’s not always clear what the symbols mean despite the key.
The longitudinal data are excellent in table and figure form (including by subgroup), but some reviewers could not locate the button to find the data.
There is a school comparison tool that reviewers found easy to use, but it doesn’t seem to include longitudinal data or subgroup data.

Tennessee

Grade: A
Website

Trend data are available under “Federal Success Rate” not “State Achievement Rate,” which some reviewers found confusing to locate.
Reviewers could find overall trend data, but no trend data for student subgroups.
Reviewers felt the landing page for each school should contain some performance data rather than just demographics.

Florida

Grade: B
Website

The landing page for each school could provide more summary performance information.
The site is generally well labeled and reviewers felt it was easy to figure out where to click to find relevant information.
Reviewers would have preferred if longitudinal subgroup data were presented side-by-side rather than having to refresh graphs.

Illinois

Grade: B
Website

Exceptionally well-designed, easy-to-navigate site.
Some acronyms and jargon hinder data understanding.
Trend data was available for some, but not all outcomes. The report card also offers a range of indicators on teacher and student characteristics and outcomes.

Maryland

Grade: B
Website

Translated versions of the report card are easy to find. Definitions of the different measures are available, but easily missed at the bottom of the page.
Subgroup data are only presented for numerically significant groups.
Reviewers wanted tables or figures that allowed you to easily put years or student groups side by side.

Minnesota

Grade: B
Website

Reviewers liked that the report was organized around questions like “How well are students doing?”
While test scores are easily viewable across years, it is more complex to find longitudinal attendance data.
The longitudinal data for test scores only allow you to select one student subgroup at a time.

Missouri

Grade: B
Website

Bare bones design—mostly just large tables of data with no explanation.
The report card shows data for indicators that are not appropriate given the school level (e.g., graduation rates shown for elementary schools as a large table full of asterisks).
Allows side-by-side year selection, but data presentation is unclear.

Nebraska

Grade: B
Website

This site was among the most visually appealing of the report cards.
There are colored circles for different indicators on each schools’ landing page; reviewers were not sure if the colors symbolized anything.
Subgroup data are available, but sometimes hard to locate

Nevada

Grade: B
Website

The main report card does not provide trends, but it’s easy to toggle between years or to get trend data froman interactive tool linked at the bottom of the page.
This interactive tool for custom trend/subgroup data was easy to use, but more data could be provided automatically.
Multiple reports (“school rating report,” “accountability report card,” and “data details”); rmade it unclear which one to use to find the desired information.

North Carolina

Grade: B
Website

The figures and tables in this report card were well-designed and easy to read. The school comparison tool was especially easy to use.
Many non-test measures included are included on the report card, including inputs that many parents would likely find interesting.
While the overall school grade is easy to see longitudinally, other longitudinal data were much harder to find.

Washington

Grade: B
Website

For some measures, trend data is reported directly on a figure; for others, the user has to toggle between years.
The presentation of student subgroup performance data was especially clear.
Each piece of data comes with a clear guiding question, e.g., “What percent of students had fewer than two absences per month, on average?”

Alabama

Grade: C
Website

Many indicators, including achievement and growth data, are unclear; varied data formats may confuse users.
Toggling across years is straighforward, but side-by-side year comparisons aren’t available.
The site is basic, but functional.

Colorado

Grade: C
Website

Achievement results on the landing page could be clearer.
Many clicks are required to find data; reviewers sometimes got lost when searching for indicators. Reviewers could not find disaggregated data for chronic absenteeism.
Assessment results labeled by test name, but with potentially unclear acronyms.

DC

Grade: C
Website

Most subgroup data were readily available and presented either on the main screen or with just one click.
While reviewers understood the need for data suppression for small subgroups, the amount of data suppression on graphs made them hard to read.
There are nearly two dozen different tabs under “Academic Achievement;” reviewers felt users would likely be confused about which to focus on.

Georgia

Grade: C
Website

The website was hard to locate via search.
Tools for comparing schools and finding demographically similar schools are available.
Reviewers found it frustrating to toggle between years because sometimes indicators and menus changed across years.

Indiana

Grade: C
Website

“Headline indicators” show detailed, clear longitudinal data and school to state comparisons.
Some indicators are missing (science, social studies achievement, EL proficiency).
Among the easiest sites to navigate; displays available longitudinal data well.

Kansas

Grade: C
Website

Multiple report card types (e.g., building report card, accreditation report) cause confusion.
Achievement data allows users to toggle to “5 years,” but not to other indicators. Data is labeled “performance level reports,” which reviewers thought might not be clear to users.
Clearly organized, but would benefit from a landing page with overall data or summary results.

Kentucky

Grade: C
Website

The landing page gives color-coded ratings but no real data. Getting to data requires several clicks.
Reviewers found it easy to toggle between years, but no trend data is otherwise presented.
Some of the data, such as chronic absenteeism, are presented as student counts rather than percentages.

Mississippi

Grade: C
Website

Reviewers found the website very easy to navigate, and the graphics were very consistent.
While it is easy to toggle between years, the report card does not put longitudinal data next to each other.
Reviewers appreciated that subgroup data were presented cleanly and consistently without having to search.

New Hampshire

Grade: C
Website

One report card, iAchieve, tracks achievement and a different system, iReport, tracks outcomes. Reviewers were not clear on where to find different indicators.
Hovering over some results gives more information, but this feature isn’t available for every result.
The report cards were busy and inconsistent in presentation, with lots of different kinds and appearance of graphs and tables.

New Jersey

Grade: C
Website

The summary report provides a few high-level results.
Drop-down menus produce perhaps too many ways to view the data, which might overwhelm users. Data quantity was also at times overwhelming (e.g., ELA/math performance data spread across 20 printed pages).
Three-year graphs are available, but users had to return to the landing page to see prior years. The menu to switch between years didn’t work reliably and also required users to return to the home page.

New York

Grade: C
Website

The report card is very customizable, but this site was among the hardest to navigate—it puts a substantial burden on the user to know what to search for.
Outcome data are overwhelming in volume and not clearly formatted.
This site has a very long archive, going back more than a decade.

Ohio

Grade: C
Website

The landing page on the report card gives clear summary ratings in each domain on a 5-star scale.
Reviewers could not locate disaggregated data on most measures.
Chronic absenteeism data is available but located in a separate system (the “Education and Workforce Report Portal”) that most reviewers could not locate.

Texas

Grade: C
Website

The state report card website is two years behind due to lawsuits; reviewers evaluated the best available website.
The available state report card website is easy to navigate with clear drop-down menus.
Reviewers thought users might be overwhelmed by the volume of data presented in large tables. Toggling through years was straightforward, but it would be difficult to make sense of trends.

Virginia

Grade: C
Website

Graphs and tables typically provide three years of data; pre-COVID data was not always available.
Data appears on multiple tabs (e.g., under “accreditation” and “assessment”) and reviewers weren’t sure which to refer to.
Buttons beneath each figure allow for easy toggling between student subgroups.

Arizona

Grade: D
Website

Accessible subgroup performance data; allows toggling subgroups on/off.
Report card is dense; may overwhelm users. Some figures’ color schemes are difficult to read.
Some indicators do not have school- or district-level data from before COVID (e.g., chronic absenteeism).

Arkansas

Grade: D
Website

Abundant data (printing it would take 118 pages), but reviewers were unclear how to use it.
An “analyzer” tool is available to make charts, but reviewers couldn’t figure out how to use it.
The dashboard shows three years of data; finding pre-COVID data requires users to return to the main menu and select a new year.

California

Grade: D
Website

Report cards are easy to navigate and consistent in presentation.
Extracting data behind dashboards is challenging. It would be helpful if the data could also be provided in tables.
Longitudinal comparisons do not appear to be available.

Iowa

Grade: D
Website

Interface is clear and usable, and omparison tool is easy to use. However, seeing additional years of data requires returning to the main screen.
Users can toggle between “accountability” and “in-depth” views with subgroup sizes of 20 and 10, respectively.
Scores are clearly explained, but comparisons to criteria are lacking.

Massachusetts

Grade: D
Website

The report card is easy to use and organized by questions, which reviewers liked.
Data for subgroups is easy to find, but cannot be easily compared side-by-side. Could not find a school comparison tool.
Viewing more than two or three years of data requires returning to the main menu.

Montana

Grade: D
Website

The system produces many graphs, but many of the more detailed ones were small hard to read.
The report cards do put three years of data side-by-side in the detailed view.
Substantial data suppression, while understandable, made the tables and figures difficult to interpret.

Wisconsin

Grade: D
Website

Wisconsin has two systems, a PDF report card and a dashboard called WISEDash. WISEDash is very challenging to locate—reviewers couldn’t find it through Google searches or through the DPI website.
Longitudinal data was available for most indicators, but it’s clunky to navigate and not clearly labeled. Student subgroup data is available for all indicators, but the data was often buried.
There are no school landing pages. EL proficiency and student growth data seem to only be available by navigating to a separate page and downloading spreadsheets.

West Virginia

Grade: D
Website

West Virginia has two systems—the one the state foregrounds (Balanced Scorecard) is much less usable than ZoomWV, which is the site we evaluated.
The longitudinal figures produced are clear and easy to read.
ZoomWV filter menus were not intuitive and the page was hard to operate. Individual schools don’t have landing pages, making the navigation somewhat tricky.

Alaska

Grade: F
Website

Data are in large tables; difficult for most users to understand. A summary or snapshot would be helpful.
Year comparisons require multiple clicks and navigation.
There is a one-page school report, but it doesn’t clarify if the results are on track or not.

Idaho

Grade: F
Website

Reviewers could not find any report card data of any kind from pre-COVID, but the report card clearly reports the last three years of data on most outcomes.
Reviewers found this site easy to navigate and the figures easy to interpret.
Subgroup data is readily available.
The school comparison tool is among the more straightforward to use of similar tools across all states.

Louisiana

Grade: F
Website

The current year’s report card is in a separate place and provides high-level results, but for detailed results and all prior years, users must go elsewhere.
Reports are powered by Power BI and felt to reviewers like glorified spreadsheets lacking charts or explanatory graphs.
Some indicators have pre-COVID data available, but reviewers found those data very difficult to locate.

Maine

Grade: F
Website

The report card only provides data back to 2020-21 on all indicators.
Reviewers wished there was some data presented on the landing page (all data is found after clicking on individual indicators).
The navigation on this report card is not as easy as some others, because users must go back to the school landing page before moving to different indicators.
The report card has a feature to hide suppressed student groups in graphs, which reviewers liked because it made the graphs less cluttered.

New Mexico

Grade: F
Website

The revised NM Vistas website is beautiful and reviewers found it easy to navigate.
The current report card only offers data for the current school year, but it appears there is functionality to include future years.
When future years are available, reviewers would appreciate seeing longitudinal trends presented as clearly as the rest of the data are.
Subgroup data are clearly shown in easy-to-read figures.

North Dakota

Grade: F
Website

Performance data are regularly reported for the last three years on most indicators, but reviewers could not find historical data pre-COVID.
It was not always clear to reviewers where to click to obtain more detailed data.
Certain figures were very difficult for reviewers to interpret (e.g., chronic absenteeism across demographic groups).

Oregon

Grade: F
Website

This system requires users to download individual report card files as PDFs. There is also an “accountability details” PDF for each school and year.

The PDF report cards do contain subgroup data for major outcomes.

Reviewers could not locate any achievement growth data—there is “gap score change” data, but this seems to be a change in the mean scale score (it was not well described in the detailed report).
There were colors on the report card and reviewers were not sure what they meant.

Rhode Island

Grade: F
Website

Reviewers appreciated the “at a glance” summary page but also wished that page would help contextualize the results (e.g., are they on track or not).
Student subgroup assessment data is presented clearly.
The report cards have a short “school narrative” that seems to be written by the principal; this more “qualitative” data could be a model for other states to consider.
Reviewers found it very difficult to locate prior years of data.

South Carolina

Grade: F
Website

Disaggregated achievement data is only available on another linked website, not the report card itself.
Reviewers found it more difficult to toggle report cards across years than most other states, resulting in a lower overall rating.
Reviewers felt the explanation of the “student progress” score would be unclear to most non-specialists.
The site is easy to navigate but some of the tables and figures were unclear to reviewers.

South Dakota

Grade: F
Website

Trend graphs show data for the prior three years; to obtain pre-pandemic trends one must go back to the main menu and select earlier report cards.
Results on the report cards are organized thematically according to questions that parents/other users might ask.
Report cards provide sample questions from student assessments.
Student subgroup data is readily available.

Utah

Grade: F
Website

Utah’s report cards do cover the last three years, but reviewers could not find data on most outcomes from pre-COVID.
Some figures are unlabeled with numbers, making the data uninterpretable.
Subgroup data is available by requesting more details but is not foregrounded.

Vermont

Grade: F
Website

Reviewers found this to be the most difficult of all state report cards to use. The system often lags or does not load at all. It is often not clear where to click to locate desired information.
There are separate systems for each indicator and year, and reviewers found them unintuitive to operate.
Subgroup data are only sporadically available for certain indicators.

Wyoming

Grade: F
Website

The main report card does not show subgroup accountability data. There is a link to a system to request that data, but reviewers found that system too complex to use.
Of all state report cards, Wyoming’s may provide the least performance data—little is provided that is intelligible beyond proficiency and graduation rates.
Proficiency rates are given in ranges (e.g., 48-50%); reviewers were unsure why.

Idaho

Overall website usability: Great
Website

Illinois

Overall website usability: Great
Website

Indiana

Overall website usability: Great
Website

New Mexico

Overall website usability: Great
Website

Oklahoma

Overall website usability: Great
Website

Arizona

Overall website usability: Good
Website

Connecticut

Overall website usability: Good
Website

Delaware

Overall website usability: Good
Website

DC

Overall website usability: Good
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Florida

Overall website usability: Good
Website

Hawaii

Overall website usability: Good
Website

Iowa

Overall website usability: Good
Website

Kentucky

Overall website usability: Good
Website

Maryland

Overall website usability: Good
Website

Massachusetts

Overall website usability: Good
Website

Minnesota

Overall website usability: Good
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Mississippi

Overall website usability: Good
Website

Nebraska

Overall website usability: Good
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North Carolina

Overall website usability: Good
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Pennsylvania

Overall website usability: Good
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South Carolina

Overall website usability: Good
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South Dakota

Overall website usability: Good
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Tennessee

Overall website usability: Good
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Utah

Overall website usability: Good
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Alabama

Overall website usability: Fair
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California

Overall website usability: Fair
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Colorado

Overall website usability: Fair
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Georgia

Overall website usability: Fair
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Kansas

Overall website usability: Fair
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Maine

Overall website usability: Fair
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Michigan

Overall website usability: Fair
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Montana

Overall website usability: Fair
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Nevada

Overall website usability: Fair
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New Jersey

Overall website usability: Fair
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Ohio

Overall website usability: Fair
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Rhode Island

Overall website usability: Fair
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Virginia

Overall website usability: Fair
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Washington

Overall website usability: Fair
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West Virginia

Overall website usability: Fair
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Wisconsin

Overall website usability: Fair
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Alaska

Overall website usability: Poor
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Arkansas

Overall website usability: Poor
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Louisiana

Overall website usability: Poor
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Missouri

Overall website usability: Poor
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New Hampshire

Overall website usability: Poor
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New York

Overall website usability: Poor
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North Dakota

Overall website usability: Poor
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Oregon

Overall website usability: Poor
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Texas

Overall website usability: Poor
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Vermont

Overall website usability: Poor
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Wyoming

Overall website usability: Poor
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