Alice McNeill: It’s time for a fair ‘report card’ of our schools

What makes a school great? And how should we measure that? 

Each public school in DC is profiled and measured with a report card. The DC School Report Card, according to education officials, is meant to give families a look at their options in a district where they can choose to send their kids to any of the city’s 116 traditional public schools and 135 public charter schools.

After ongoing advocacy from local parents, students, educators and local advocacy groups, the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) is redesigning the school report cards for 2024. Educational advocates have argued that OSSE’s current report cards inappropriately reduce each school to a number; are overwhelmingly and excessively based on standardized state assessments; and perpetuate long-standing inequities in education across the city. 

How we choose to measure and rate our schools has huge influence over how families decide what neighborhoods to live in and schools to attend — and therefore has consequences in terms of school enrollment, segregation, funding and more. Now, with a vote on OSSE’s new proposed report cards scheduled this month, the State Board of Education (SBOE) has a critical choice to make.

While certain information must be included due to federal mandates, much of what we choose to show families on the school report card is up to DC education officials — not only the superintendent’s office but ultimately the elected members of the SBOE. With a vote approaching, we may be headed for a huge missed opportunity that could further damage the reputation of our schools and undermine the hard work of students and educators. A student in the second grade once told me “this is a bad school” when referring to their neighborhood public school; when I asked why, they shrugged. Parents often say “I would never send my child there!” based entirely on a STAR rating — without ever having stepped into the school building itself.

Currently, most of the metrics OSSE wants to include on the report cards actually rank toward the bottom of what residents say they care about most — instead relying heavily on test scores from DC’s statewide assessment and other measures that are more indicative of poverty than of school quality, such as post-secondary enrollment. These narrow metrics would then be combined to generate a score displayed on the online school profile.  

OSSE and the local nonprofit EmpowerEd each conducted surveys to ask students, families, educators and community members what they considered to be the most important metrics to measure a school. While OSSE’s survey had only 136 responses, EmpowerEd collected 450 responses with equitable response rates from across all eight wards. What those who took the latter survey valued most, based on their top responses, was not test scores from statewide assessments; it was students “feeling safe at school,” followed by a favorable school climate, well-rounded education, teacher experience and quality, and the like. 

Over half of the respondents believe students are overtested in DC schools. Across the city, a desire for improved school safety equated to more mental health support in schools, according to the survey results. With the exception of respondents from Ward 3, increasing police presence in schools was ranked last in desired safety support. Ideas with more backing include proactively investing in our schools through the arts, a social-emotional curriculum, school safety directors, mental health supports, and wrap-around services for families and communities — all of which would create true safety and help end the school-to-prison pipeline. There was a clear pattern in the survey responses: It’s strong academics coupled with social-emotional learning that DC residents believe makes a school great.

It is clear that Washingtonians are interested in the overall school environment and want this to be mirrored in how schools are profiled on the DC school report card. Any school is much more than its test scores, and having a report card that creates a more vivid and accurate picture of what takes place in a school on a day-to-day basis is critical to helping schools cement improvements and gain ground. How diverse is the school’s staff? What mental health supports are in place to prioritize student well-being? Do schools implement restorative justice, and what does that look like? This information should be included on the redesigned school report card.

Great things are happening across the District’s schools, and the school report card should highlight what makes each school great from a broad, holistic view. As teachers, we hold high expectations for our students and our city. If a student submits work that fails to meet the objective, we send it back with feedback and ask them to try again. If OSSE presents a proposed school report card that fails to provide a comprehensive picture of schools, SBOE must exert its authority and, as a good teacher would, send it back and ask OSSE to try again.

Alice McNeill is a DC Public Schools teacher, EmpowerEd teacher fellow and a DC resident.

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