How easy would it be for a parent or advocate to compare student performance pre- and post-COVID? The short answer: in most states, it’s not easy at all.
Our researchers graded all 50 states’ and Washington, DC’s school report card websites on an A-F scale, based on how easy it would be for a parent or advocate to find longitudinal data on performance going back to pre-COVID times. Our findings reveal that most states are failing to provide accessible, transparent longitudinal performance data—at a time when parents, advocates, and the general public need it most to address continued pandemic learning loss. Read the report and explore the data map to see details about each state’s performance.
Key Highlights:
- Top performers: Only seven states earned an A: Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Michigan, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee.
- Most states fall short: 34 states plus D.C. received a grade of C or worse for their efforts to provide accessible, transparent school performance data going back to pre-COVID times.
- Common data gaps: Graduation rates and ELA/mathematics performance levels are widely available, but social studies, achievement growth, and chronic absenteeism data are often missing or hard to find.
- Navigation challenges: Reviewers rated 27 state reports as ‘fair’ or ‘poor’ in terms of usability.
Our recommendations include:
- Collaborate across states: States should work together to create unified, user-friendly report card models that can provide consistent and transparent data.
- Enhance usability: Conduct more thorough user experience testing to simplify data presentation and navigation, taking cues from states with high usability ratings.
- Increase transparency: Ensure data is clear and accessible, particularly post-COVID school performance, with potential federal support to standardize transparency efforts.
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.
