Local News - December 2003

Parents to receive school report cards

Published December 5, 2003

By Staff and Wire

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 RALEIGH (AP) — For a third straight year, parents will get the chance to review the performance of their children’s schools in a report card that will be distributed beginning Friday.

Lincoln County’s results will be released on Tuesday.

Gov. Mike Easley said Thursday that the latest school report cards will add new information including teacher quality data required under the federal No Child Left Behind legislation.

“The kids love it because it grades the schools rather than the children,” Easley said.

Easley began the individual school report card in the 2000-01 school year. The latest report cards assess school performance for the 2002-03 school year.

The two-page reports include measures of students performance by grade or subject matter and comparisons with the rest of the school district and state.

They also show student population, average class size by grade or course, number of acts of crime reported at the school, and charts on teaching experience and qualification.

For the last eight years, North Carolina has released some individual school comparisons from end-of-grade and end-of-course tests as part of the ABCs accountability program.

The new report cards help the state meet the new federal education guidelines requiring that parents be given some comparative data on school performance.

Easley and state school officials said they hope the report cards are increasing parental involvement and volunteerism in the schools.

“I think this truly represents a statement that is often used, that education is everybody’s business,” said state Board of Education Chairman Howard Lee.

State Schools Superintendent Mike Ward added that parents armed with the additional information can be advocates to improve the schools and for the resources to make changes.

But he pointed out the report cards will cause for celebration in some communities where schools are outperforming their counterparts in the rest of the state.

“It allows them to investigate ...It allows them to advocate,” Ward said.

The latest release of the report cards also were accompanied by a public relations campaign to make communities more aware of the program. Fairway Outdoor Advertising has agreed to promote awareness about the report cards by donating space on 200 billboards across North Carolina.

The individual reports were posted on the Internet on Thursday at www.ncreportcards.org.

© 2001 Lincoln Times-News  

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