Annual statewide report card compiles public school information
Monday, November 22, 2021
The Oregon Department of Education released Monday its annual public schools report card, and it has some incompletes.
The “Oregon Statewide Report Card 2020-2021” offers a snapshot of mostly previously released information on prekindergarten through 12th grade, including early childhood data, student demographics, school funding, and graduation and dropout rates.
For the second year in a row, COVID-19 disrupted data collection, but some of the measures left out last year have returned, including class size, students’ language diversity, summative assessment scores, ninth grade on track to graduate, attendance, and enrollment for talented and gifted and alternative education programs.
Distance learning, however, affected some of the data sets, making them not comparable to previous years. ODE noted the inconsistencies.
A new section tabulated the percentages of teachers in high-poverty and low-poverty schools with an emergency license or who were teaching out of their field. Percentages for both were higher in high-poverty schools than for all schools or for low-poverty schools.
“The school year covered by this Annual Statewide Report Card was like no other, but by the end, we saw reason for hope,” ODE Director Colt Gill said in a news release.
Oregon schools started in distance learning, but by spring, most schools were offering limited in-person learning and some were able to go back to classes full time.
The ODE report card highlights other changes, including the Every Student Belongs rule and legislative bills that promote social and emotional learning, equity and cultural understanding.
