The Evolution of School Wise Press
Major revision of the Assessment Explorer extended to include quasi-longitudinal analysis of up to four years’ results for a graduating class cohort. Evidence of progress becomes visible for the same students over time.
Partnership established with Teachers College, Columbia University (New York).
Launch of professional development services, starting with measurement centered workshops and a 19-hour course for LCAP teams. The first client for that course: Napa CoE and its five districts.
Debut of the Assessment Explorer, dedicated solely to interpretation of CAASPP/SBAC results at the school or district level.
Debut of the Planning Explorer, an evolution of measurement tools we developed in 2013 for comparative analysis. Adding comparative analysis of staffing and finance resources, plus course participation.
Emphasis on planning support to district teams writing Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAPs). First county office client: Monterey CoE. Support to their 24 districts includes comparative “similar district” method and visual analysis tools and workshops.
A new team, named the K12 Measures Project, debuts. It marks the start of our analytics practice, bringing meaning out of school and district data so those in charge can make decisions with better evidence in hand.
End of accountability reporting services. Over 240 districts served since launch of service, and an average 210,000 reports read per year. Frees resources to focus on management support.
Launch of analytics consulting service. Newport-Mesa USD engages SWP to bring professional development and higher quality assessment evidence to principals. Goal: to enable principals to write smarter Single Plans for Student Achievement (SPSA).
Begins full use of Tableau software to visualize comparative views of schools’ vital signs. This was preceded by two years of R+D with Google’s motion charts.
SWP wins Golden Achievement Award from the National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA) for excellence in accountability reporting.
Launch of an assessment consulting group called the Owl Corps. This brings a senior level, nine-person team to districts, just as districts speed up lay-offs of their assessment directors one year into the downturnb.
Start of reports to each client district that measure actual readership of accountability reports. Discover that readership levels are 31 reports read, on average, for every 100 students enrolled (seven times readership level of CDE formatted reports).
California School Public Relations Association awards School Wise Press the first award of merit for the quality of its school accountability report cards.
Launch of the first professional accountability reporting service for California districts. San Jose USD is the first client. More than 240 districts will eventually follow. The service delivers benchmarks that provide comparability at the school and county level.
Launches website, offering advice to parents seeking to get school-smart, and over 3,000 California school rankings.
Debut of profiles in English and Spanish about each of California’s 9,500+ schools, and licenses them to libraries, graduate schools, real estate brokers, title companies and the Los Angeles Times.
School Wise Press starts to help parents get school-smart. Publishes four books about San Francisco’s schools.
