School Report Cards

Every year the Illinois State Board of Education provides a school report card for every single school in the state.  The public can find a ton of data on the report cards; the demographic breakdown, the number of days school was in session, class sizes, student to teacher ratios, revenue sources, average teacher salary, and academic performance.  Overall, if you were interested in any of this information, this is the perfect resource and it's easy to find!

However, my problem with it is that this often is the way that schools are judged if they are 'good' or not.  While it's easy to look on a piece of paper and see that test scores are slightly below the state average, you really are only getting a glimpse of the whole story.  I know people who have reviewed these report cards in deciding between public school and private school or where they should move to, and labeled a school as 'bad' because the numbers seem as if they reflect this.  But where the problem lays is that this is absolutely not an indicator of how every child performs or will perform.  What you don't see on the report card is what is really happening both inside and outside of the classroom.  You don't see all the growth and progress each individual student is making, you don't see the school culture and whether or not there are good teachers or bad teachers in the classroom.  You don't see the teachers spending their weekends working on lesson plans and grading assignments, nor do you see them in the classroom from before the sun rises til after is sets on this report card.

There is so much data that shows both how parental involvement and social-economic levels affect children's learning yet this isn't reflected in a school's report card.  The way a school fosters student social-emotional development isn't reflected.  The number of clubs and extra-curricular activities that are offered to students isn't shown on here.  Nor is how progressive and technologically competitive a school is.  The report card doesn't show how passionate the administrators are, how they know almost every single student's name (seriously in a school of over 600), will quickly respond to parent's emails no matter the time of day and will sit on the office floor to help console and calm a student who is having a meltdown.  It's not going to tell you if the students are happy and thriving and being motivated and pushed to meet their full potential.  It doesn't show you what opportunities the school provides that others don't.

My own personal experience with a school that looks like it doesn't perform as highly as it could is that I have an eighth-grade daughter who has had a ton of success during her academic career.  She is currently in honors classes and has been accepted to all honors in high school next year.  She cheers for her junior high's cheerleading squad and they are one of the top teams in the state.  The sports teams are always at the top of their division and as I am typing this the basketball team is preparing for their first playoff game, after being undefeated this season.  My daughter has had some of the most wonderful, compassionate, hard-working teachers you will ever meet, and the administrators constantly blow me away with how involved and caring they are with all the students.  Our district is a one-on-one district, with each student in K-2 having iPads and 3-8 having Chromebooks.  We have active parent groups that provide events and financial support to the schools to help with technology, supplies, assemblies and anything else that is needed.  My son, who is in first grade, is in a two-way immersion Spanish program that is unique to the area.  By the time he enters high school, he should be bilingual and bi-literate.  Our library is fully stocked, our physical education teachers teach CrossFit and have an equipment closet that many schools can only dream of and there's never a shortage of balls, chalk and jump ropes on the playground at recess.  Both my kids are extremely comfortable in their environments, have many friends and fully trust that they could turn to their teachers if they ever needed anything.  I could go on and on, but I think you get the point.

So my advice to everyone is that you simply can't judge a school by a piece of paper.  You can't disregard all the hard work by the teachers and students alike.  Yes, academic success is without a doubt important, however, so are all the other ways of developing the whole child.

Here is the link for the school my son attends and I sub at:
Stony Creek Elementary School's State Report Card 2017-2018