(BATON ROUGE, LA ) - The Louisiana Department of Education today released 2021-22 school performance scores for the state’s public K-12 schools and systems. These results signal a continued academic recovery for students following unprecedented school disruptions caused by the pandemic and numerous hurricanes.
Scores released today show that Louisiana’s statewide school performance score is now the same as before the pandemic - at 77.1 in both 2019 and 2022.
“Returning our statewide performance score to its pre-pandemic level is reason to be thankful, but we have a long way to go for Louisiana’s children,” said Louisiana State Superintendent Cade Brumley. “We must continue to act with urgency to provide even better outcomes moving forward - that’s the challenge we must meet.”
Last year, a simulated score of 75.3 was generated for 2021. When compared to last year’s simulated score, Louisiana improved 1.8 points to 77.1. Statewide, 48 of the 63 traditional public school systems included in this release showed improvement from 2021 to 2022. Thirty Louisiana school systems have now equaled or improved their school performance score when compared to 2019.
Several measures of performance increased when compared with 2020-21 statewide simulated school performance scores, including measures from state assessments, ACT results, dropout data, and expanded school interests and opportunities measures.
This is the first time interests and opportunities has been used to measure schools in official school performance scores. This new indicator, originally approved by BESE in 2018 for implementation in 2019-20, measures whether schools are providing students with access to a well-rounded education that exposes them to a range of learning activities. It accounts for five percent of the school performance score formula.
Performance data is available now on the LDOE website. Performance scores will be available on the Louisiana School and Center Finder by the end of 2022.
In August, the Department released 2021-22 LEAP scores that showed Mastery rates improved in ELA and math for students in grades 3-8. In October, the Nation’s Report Card showed that Louisiana students avoided some of the most dramatic learning loss seen across the nation.
About Performance Scores
Since 1999, the state has issued School Performance Scores for public schools, which are based on student achievement data. To clearly communicate the quality of school performance to families and the public, Louisiana adopted letter grades (A-F). All schools with sufficient data receive school performance scores.
About 2020-21 Simulated Performance Scores
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, BESE waived all of its policies related to the production of School Performance Scores and letter grades for the 2020-21 school year. In their place, the Department released simulated School Performance Scores, which are unofficial results that show what performance scores would have been in 2020-2021. While simulated School Performance Scores did use actual data verified by school systems, they were not official results.
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