Washington’s Highest Improving Schools Honored

2012 School of Distinction Awards announced for 5-year improvement in Reading and Math

Renton WA – December 7, 2012 – Outstanding improvement in student achievement led to a special honor for 97 schools; all received the 2012 School of Distinction Award from The Center for Educational Effectiveness (CEE), the Association of Educational Service Districts (AESD), the Association of Washington School Principals (AWSP), Phi Delta Kappa-Washington Chapter (PDK-WA), Washington Association of School Administrators (WASA), Washington State ASCD and Washington State School Directors’ Association (WSSDA).

The 2012 School of Distinction award winners include 54 elementary schools, 24 middle / junior high schools, and 19 high schools. This represents the 6th annual School of Distinction award recognition in Washington State. “These schools represent the top 5% of improvement of all schools in Washington State,” noted Greg Lobdell, CEE President. “These schools are from all regions of the state, all sizes of towns, and with 2% to 95% poverty and enrollment of English Language Learners as high as 49%, these schools demonstrate that significant improvement is occurring all across our diverse public schools.”

In the Puget Sound Educational Service District (ESD) region, which serves King and Pierce counties and Bainbridge Island, 45 schools in 21 school districts are award winners. The agency plans to hold an award ceremony January 24 for the winning schools. The event will be held from 4:30 to 7:30 pm at the Puget Sound ESD Renton headquarters located at 800 Oakesdale Ave. SW.

John Welch, Puget Sound ESD Superintendent states, “We are pleased to be a partner in honoring schools within our region that set a high standard in realizing dramatic achievement gains for students. We recognize the difficult and important work that this takes. We salute the students, families, educators, and communities for their successes and for setting a high bar for us all."

Specifics of the methodology used to determine 2012 winners are summarized in the following bullets:

• Three grade bands are used for calculation: grades 3, 4, and 5 for elementary schools, grades 6, 7 and 8 for middle or junior high schools, and grade 10 for high schools. A school must have data in two of three grades to be considered for that band. Data source is the OSPI reported data from the data downloads section of the state report card: http://reportcard.ospi.k12.wa.us/DataDownload.aspx
• For grades 3 to 8, the 2012 performance is defined as the “Reading/Math Level Index” and must meet the minimum threshold: at or above the state median for the grade band. For 10th grade, OSPI is no longer publically reporting the Reading/Math level index results. CEE used High School Proficiency Exam for Reading and combined End-of-Course Math results (including students who passed the exam as 9th graders in 2011) to obtain a valid measure for 2012 10th grade performance.
• The performance measure is calculated using the Measures of Student Progress (3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grade) and for 10th grade, the High School Proficiency Exam in Reading and the End-of-Course exams in Math.
• Using data from 2007 through 2012 provides six data points that identify five improvement steps.
• A school may be considered in multiple bands. E.g. a K-8 school would be eligible in both elementary and middle/junior high bands. Alternative learning environments are considered independently in each of the 3 grade bands (subject to the same minimum performance threshold as all schools in the grade band).
• A school must have data in at least three of six years to be considered, one of which must be 2012.
• "Improvement" is defined as the slope of linear trend over the five years.
• The number of schools comprising 5% is based on the number of schools at each grade band with valid 2012 data.

Posted 1.3.13