In 2013, the U.S. Department of Education released a number of new data resources that provide great information about public charter schools. As the year comes to a close, here is a rundown of all the new releases that help inform our work:
Achievement Results for State Assessments in Reading/Language Arts and Mathematics: For the first time, performance data that the U.S. Department of Education collects from state departments of education through EDFactswas made publicly available. The files include data for all public schools across the country and are available for the 2008-09 through 2011-12 school years. The data files for four years can be accessed through Data.gov.
Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rates: Also available through Data.gov are school-level four-year adjusted cohort graduation rates for the 2010-11 school year. Not only is this the first time that graduation rate data for all public schools has been available from one data source, but it is the first time that school-level graduation rate data using the same measure (i.e., four-year cohort) has been available from all states.
2013 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP): In November, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) released 2013 NAEP results in mathematics and reading for fourth and eighth graders. There is a helpful online data explorer that can be used to compare public charter school and non-charter school data at the national, state, and district levels.
Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS): NCES also released the 2011-12 administration of SASS data, which includes descriptive statistics about teachers and school leaders in public charter schools and non-charter schools across the country. This is the best source of information about school personnel. For an overview of the charter school data, check out our blog write-up.
School Improvement Grant (SIG): If you are interested in a list of public schools eligible for school improvement grants (SIG) and schools that have received SIG grants, you can find information here.
Common Core of Data (CCD): The Common Core of Data (CCD), a complete listing of public schools along with descriptive information about the schools, is available through the 2010-11 school year, with a preliminary data file available for 2011-12. We expect that the full 2011-12 data file will be released in early 2014 and the preliminary 2012-13 data file should be released shortly after that.
Looking for more? The National Alliance’s Public Charter School Dashboard provides additional data on public charter schools and is a comprehensive resource for pulling data about individual school districts, states, and nationwide. The National Charter School Resource Center’s National Authorizer – Charter School Catalog is also a helpful database for charter school authorizers. Be sure to keep up with the latest available information about your state or school by checking out these sites. Anna Nicotera is the senior director of research at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.
