The New Jersey Department of Education recently issued the New Jersey school performance reports for the 2020-2021 school year for public viewing. The reports may be found on the NJDOE’s school performance reports website.
The NJDOE noted that it is critical to use the data available in the reports, along with other information collected directly within your LEA and community, to start conversations, identify gaps in information and find ways to address the impacts of COVID-19 while ensuring students receive appropriate supports.
Important Notes about the 2020-2021 Reports
Notes are included throughout the school performance reports to explain where data is missing or impacted by COVID-19 – and an updated Impact of COVID-19 on Data Availability resource is available to summarize this information. Some data published in previous years is not available in the 2020-2021 school performance reports, such as student growth. Certain data elements that were unavailable for the 2019-2020 reports (e.g., chronic absenteeism data) are available again for the 2020-2021 reports.
The 2020-2021 reports include changes that respond to stakeholder feedback and updated federal and state requirements. These changes include:
- New career and college readiness data including Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate and dual enrollment participation by student group and work-based learning participation.
- Additional graduation data that includes the six-year adjusted cohort graduation rate. Note that the NJDOE now uses a different methodology to calculate the federal graduation rate, as per a U.S. Department of Education directive, and the new school performance reports provide the graduation rate using both the prior calculation methodology and the one as directed by the USDOE.
- Expanded staff data, including staff counts and information about teachers by subject area, as requested by stakeholders.
- New apprenticeship data that shows how many students register in apprenticeship programs after high school graduation.
- Links to additional data such as Start Strong assessment results and opportunity to learn data.
To help LEAs share the information in the school performance reports and support conversations with their school communities, the NJDOE has developed optional tools that can be accessed via the school performance reports toolkit.
The NJDOE Guide for Local Stakeholder Engagement provides information about how school and district leaders can engage parents, students, staff and community members.
Contact reportcard@doe.nj.gov for questions or feedback. The NJDOE continues to seek public input on how to improve future reports and encourages stakeholders to complete the feedback survey.