Portland Public Schools see improved report card ratings

THURSDAY, JAN. 18, 2001, Portland, OR

Today's release of ratings by the Oregon Department of Education for all of the state's public K-12 schools meant good news for Portland Public Schools. In the state's second year of issuing ratings, Portland Public Schools experienced significant overall improvements. Those improvements were seen districtwide, throughout all areas of the city.

Thirty-two of the district's 99 schools moved up in the ratings. Sixty-two schools earned a 'strong' rating, and four received an 'exceptional' rating. All but three schools received ratings of 'satisfactory' or above. No school in the district received a rating of 'unacceptable.'

In the four cases where school ratings dropped, each school's overall points stayed within a few points of last year's score, but dropped just enough to cross below the cutoff point for the rating change.

"I am extremely pleased with the outcome of the second year of state ratings," said PPS Superintendent Benjamin Canada, Ph.D. "Our strong scores this year show that our efforts to improve the academic achievement of all of our students are on track. Our principals, teachers and staff are doing an outstanding job."

Canada cautioned, however, against putting too much reliance on school ratings. "The state's rating system, while a good tool, is just one of the many tools we use to evaluate the success of our schools," said Canada.

In addition to the state's report cards, the district also produces progress reports for each school that provide more in-depth information about the school's success at educating students. Those progress reports, along with the state's just-released report cards, will be distributed to parents by the end of March.

The district will continue to work with ODE to refine the measuring process for evaluating schools, noted Canada.

"One of our concerns is that so much emphasis is placed on improvement that once a school receives an 'exceptional' rating, it's hard to improve enough to avoid dropping back to 'strong.' We think there ought to be more emphasis placed on maintaining an 'exceptional' rating once a school has achieved that status," said Canada.

Results for PPS in 2000 and 2001 were:

Rating	2000	2001
Exceptional	2	4
Strong	39	62
Satisfactory	46	24
Low	4	2
Unsatisfactory	1	0
In Progress	0	1
No rating available	7	6

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2001 State report card ratings - At a glance

Schools that Improved

Schools that Held Steady

Schools that Dropped and Other School Ratings

Schools Targeted for Success by PPS and Additional Schools Designated as Crisis Schools

List of schools 2000-2001 report cards

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