School suspension: Why new Nevada K-12 performance rankings are unchanged

By Ian Whitaker

Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2015 | 2 a.m.

Today’s the day that Nevada education officials update performance rankings for schools across the state.

You can view the new data live here starting at 7 a.m., but don’t expect to see much of a change.

Due to a raft of new standardized tests rolled out in state schools last school year, the ranking system is currently in limbo.

The Nevada Department of Education is carrying over each school’s star ranking from 2013-2014 because last school year, for the first time, students took three big, new assessments aligned to the state’s Common Core standards.

The problem, say state education officials, is that it typically takes time for school districts and students to adapt to new tests. That was why state officials petitioned the U.S. Department of Education for a one-year waiver from federal accountability requirements.

“We have been poised for this,” interim state Superintendent Steve Canavero said. “We recognized the issue. We applied for the [waiver] well in advance.”

The request from Nevada, one of 24 states that sought waivers, was approved by federal education officials in June.

The new tests include the Smarter Balanced Assessment in reading and math given to 3rd through 8th grades, notable last school year for running into so many technical problems that the state was only able to test a fraction of its students. They also include End of Course exams for high schoolers and the ACT for 11th graders.

Student scores from those tests are fed each year into the Nevada School Performance Framework, an accountability system that analyzes the results and then assigns star ratings to state public and charter schools based off how well they do.

The system provides parents a way to view how their kids’ school is performing over time. But since comparisons are made between test scores in successive years, it’s difficult to gauge progress when schools only have one year’s worth of test results to go off of.

It’s even more difficult when the data that was supposed to be gathered by the test was lost due to technical problems, as occurred with the Smarter Balanced Assessment in April. A vast majority of state students went untested, which means education officials will have to wait until next year to get an accurate picture.

The rankings this year will include some new data, including statistics on the racial and economic status of students at each school based off district count days.

Canavero said parents who want to know how their school is performing should go directly to the source.

“I would suggest for those families that they should engage at their school site to learn as much as possible,” he said. “Listen to the principal. Have conversations.”