Detroit Uses 5Essentials School Effectiveness Data as Critical Element of School Report Cards
Excellent Schools Detroit Goes Beyond Test Scores and Measures School Organizational Capacity to Improve Student Learning
For Immediate Release:
Contact: Katelyn Silva
University of Chicago
Urban Education Institute
(773) 834-8684
katelynsilva@uchicago.edu
August 27, 2012 - The University of Chicago Urban Education Institute’s UChicago Impact partnered with Excellent Schools Detroit to administer a school effectiveness survey to measure how well schools are organized for improvement. Elements of the results of the 5Essentials School Reports for 189 public, private, and independent Detroit schools are publically available now as part of report cards created by Excellent Schools Detroit.
Moving beyond just test scores, UChicago Impact’s 5Essentials (5E) School Effectiveness Survey and School Reports define school quality, assess school climate, and create actionable reports for school improvement on five indicators or “essentials”:
- Effective leaders
- Collaborative teachers
- Involved families
- Supportive environment
- Ambitious instruction
Based on twenty years of research conducted by the University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research in over 400 schools, the five essentials have been shown to be strongly predictive of school improvement success. Schools strong in 3 to 5 of the essentials are 10 times more likely to make substantial gains in reading and math than schools weak in 3 to 5 of the essentials. Those differences remain true even after controlling for student and school characteristics including poverty, race, gender, and neighborhood characteristics. Strength on the essentials also correlates with increased teacher retention, student attendance, college enrollment, and high school graduation.
“The 5Essentials System is powerful for both educators and non-educators; it guides school improvement and predicts school success,” said Nick Montgomery, CEO of UChicago Impact. “With 5Essentials as a common measure of success, Detroit will build a new ecosystem for school improvement.“
The 5Essentials School Effectiveness Survey and School Reports will assist Excellent Schools Detroit in their mission to make Detroit the first major US city where 90 percent of students graduate from high school, 90 percent of those graduates enroll in college or a quality postsecondary training program, and 90 percent of enrollees are prepared to succeed without remediation. Currently, the high school graduation rate for Detroit public schools is approximately 38 percent, representing the third worst graduation rate of the largest 50 U.S. cities.
“The 5Essentials contribute to our overall understanding of how Detroit’s schools are performing,” said Dan Varner, CEO of Excellent Schools Detroit. “The system allows us to focus on the bigger conversation about improving education.”
“Combining rigorous evidence from 5Essentials with the views of parents and community members, Detroit is leading the nation in building a common definition of a quality school,” said Montgomery. “No other diagnostic school improvement system has more evidence supporting it. No one else is engaging parents the way Detroit is. The road toward great city schools is hard, but Detroit is on that road.”
Individualized Detroit school reports are currently publically available:
View Detroit 5Essentials Reports >>
About the University of Chicago Urban Education Institute:
The mission of UEI is to create knowledge that helps produce reliably excellent schooling for children in urban America. The organization prepares outstanding urban teachers and leaders through the Urban Teacher Education Program; conducts rigorous research to improve policy and practice, anchored by the Consortium on Chicago School Research; operates four campuses of the University of Chicago Charter School, serving students across the South Side of Chicago; and provides tools, analytics, and training to improve schools nationwide through UChicago Impact.
About Excellent Schools Detroit:
Excellent Schools Detroit is an organization working in coalition with the city education system and government and philanthropic leaders to ensure that every Detroit child is in an excellent school by 2020. Excellent Schools Detroit does this by coordinating the coalition, producing yearly report cards for all Detroit schools and by championing and incubating innovations that help the city’s schools improve.