The new Reading Readiness Dashboard, which also allows users to compare local and regional reading scores to state averages, is expected to support school and community efforts to increase the percentage of students reading at grade level, officials said in a news release this month.
“Our aim is to provide unparalleled public access to literacy results,” Georgia School Superintendent Richard Woods said in a public statement. “We are committed to ensuring every student in Georgia can learn to read, and ultimately read to learn — and that goal is only furthered by the greater transparency and accountability around our results offered by the Reading Readiness Dashboard. The dashboard provides a common source of information on our progress as we join together to improve literacy outcomes for every child.”
All the dashboard data is based on scores from English Language Arts (ELA) assessments. Individual student scores are not identified, but the tool does show percentages of students reading below, at, or above grade level. Users can filter by grade level and student subgroups to include gender, race/ethnicity, students who are still learning English, migrants, and students with disabilities.
The Reading Readiness Dashboard displays indicators for grades three through eight as well as for high school-level American Literature where no grade is specified. The statewide filter shows that for third grade, the percentage of students reading at or above grade level last year was 66 percent. For grade four, it was 57 percent; grade five, 69 percent; grade six, 56 percent; grade seven, 69 percent; grade eight, 71 percent; and American Literature, 67 percent.
Georgia joins a growing list of state education departments that are promoting transparency.
Last year, Connecticut launched its EdSight dashboard to combine several data portals in one location, allowing users to monitor school grant expenditures, view updates on post-pandemic learning recovery, see data on school suspension rates, and track graduation rates.
In Michigan, the MI School Data site allows users to compare student outcomes to salary ranges of principals and teachers. It also has “value for money” and “culture of learning” tables with statistics on free and reduced lunch program enrollment, indicators of which districts have maintained deficits for at least three years, and instructional expenditures by student.
The New York State Education Department’s Parent Dashboard, launched in 2020, shares data on average class sizes, school district location and contact information, graduation rates, student enrollment and ethnicity, assessment results, and college and career readiness.
