EDUCATION OVERSIGHT BOARD RELEASES SCHOOL REPORT CARDS AND DISTRICT REPORTS; COMMENDS HIGH PERFORMING SCHOOLS Contact: Robert Buswell or Matt Hesser      (405) 225-9470 May 20, 2005   OKLAHOMA CITY – In a release today of the Oklahoma Educational Indicators Program's School Report Cards, the Education Oversight Board (EOB) commended 137 Elementary Schools and 183 K-8 Elementary, Middle, and Junior High Schools for successfully reaching the board's 70% Performance Benchmark on standardized tests during the 2003-2004 school year. The board gave it highest praise to the 38 Elementary Schools and 2 Middle Schools that have been "Benchmark Schools" for each of the past five years. In addition, the EOB recognized a total of 324 Elementary Schools and 166 K-8 Elementary, Middle, and Junior High Schools for having met the board's benchmark at least once during the past five-year period (see attached lists). "To make the list, a school must have 70% or more of their students scoring at least "Satisfactory" in all subject areas of the Oklahoma Core Curriculum Tests," said Don McCorkell, Chairman of the Education Oversight Board. "My hat especially goes off to Cimarron Middle School in Edmond and Carver Middle School in Tulsa for meeting the benchmark for five years in a row. It is a real challenge to get high performance in every subject area of the 8th grade and these schools have done it in each of the last five years; their results are quite impressive! The state-mandated tests are administered in fifth and eighth grade and include Reading, Writing, Math, Science, and Social Studies for fifth graders and Reading, Writing, Math, Science, and History, Constitution and Government for eighth graders. Geography and the Arts were dropped from the state's fifth and eighth grade testing battery with a seventh grade Geography test coming on-line during the 2004-2005 school year. Students taking high school coursework were tested using the End-of-Instruction (EOI) exams for English II, U.S. History, Algebra I, and Biology I. The English and history tests have been administered for the last four years while the math and science tests were introduced to students for the first time in 2002-03. "The Office of Accountability prepares the annual reports for the Education Oversight Board at three levels; state, district, and school," said Robert Buswell, Executive Director of the Office of Accountability. "Together, these reports provide over 100 statistics regarding the community characteristics, programs, curriculum, budget, and student performance of Oklahoma's public schools. This is the most comprehensive, consistent, and accurate reference source for Oklahoma educational statistics that exist. During the past ten years over five million report cards have been distributed to parents through the office's Educational Indicators Program." "The challenge that faces Oklahoma educators is to put the all of this data to good use, said Don McCorkell. "Community information, program information and performance information has been available for many years now. The Internet and e-mail have facilitated communication and learning beyond what was imagined a generation ago. Teachers and administrators must work cooperatively across district boundaries to find teaching and administrative techniques that work best for each school's set of circumstances," said McCorkell. No two schools are identical, but you can be sure that there are groups of schools that share similar situations and some in the group are performing better than others. By sharing both successes and failures teachers and administrators can avoid having to reinvent the "educational wheel"," explained McCorkell. "We have been producing report cards and statistical reports for ten years and the district report is the office's most comprehensive work," indicated Robert Buswell. "From the very beginning we have had a community grouping model that facilitates comparing a district to its peers. The model considers both district size and district socio-economics and places them into one of 16 possible groups," Buswell explained. "Average performance for the peer group is included on the district report. We feel that comparing districts within the same community group yields the most fair comparisons and it is our hope that lesser performing districts within a group would contact their better performing peers and obtain "best practices" to employ in their district and improve student performance," said Buswell. "I think it is very important that the report cards include more than just a few test scores," said State Representative Odilia Dank, board member and Chair of the House Common Education Committee. "By providing information about the community being served, district finances, staff, high school course offerings, testing, college preparation, and the performance of graduates, people get a much better understanding of what is occurring in the school and the district. I know these cards are of great value to parents and patrons and the Office of Accountability should be commended for its fine work," said Dank. "The Office of Accountability serves as the state's one-stop clearinghouse for educational statistics and we share information with anyone that requests it," explained Buswell. "Grant writers use our material extensively and bring millions of additional dollars into the state's public school systems. With the addition of 2003-2004's information there will be eight year's worth of Educational Indicator data available on our web site and we have had over 400,000 school report cards downloaded since we began the site. Each month there are between 10,000 and 15,000 report cards downloaded from our web site. We are very pleased with the way the program has been received and believe its success is the result of delivering consistent and meaningful information and providing superior customer service." The School Report Cards and District Reports are all available on-line at www.SchoolReportCard.org. The report cards are printed and mailed to principals each spring in order that they may distribute copies to parents and patrons by the end of each school year. For more information about the Oklahoma Educational Indicators Program or "Profiles 2004" contact the Office of Accountability at (405) 225-9470 or visit www.SchoolReportCard.org. --###-- Lists of schools meeting 70% Performance Benchmark in all subject areas tested for the 2003-2004 school year have been included with this release. Lists report 5th grade information by county, district, and school name; 5th grade information by the number of years schools have met the benchmark over the past five-year period; 8th grade information by county, district, and school name; and 8th grade information by the number of years schools have met the benchmark over the past five-year period.