On November 9, 2010, Seattle Public Schools (SPS) released its school and district performance report cards. In doing so, Seattle joins dozens of other districts and states across the country that are sharing their progress and challenges as part of their efforts toward school improvement. The district’s transparency about its performance offers everyone in Seattle—district and school personnel, parents, community activists, and others—the opportunity to see how students in particular schools are doing and how the district is doing overall. And it has the potential to help the district better direct resources to increase learning for all of the city’s children.
This brief analyzes the school performance levels, how performance varies across different parts of the city, and how access to high-performing schools varies across different demographic groups of students.
