Annual study marks districts' areas of need and improvement

The Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce released its 2012 Education Progress Reports in April, providing business owners, educators and parents with a snapshot of what is happening in local school districts.

Kwee Lan Teo Yam, vice president of education and talent alignment for the chamber, said that for the past eight years, the chamber has partnered with school districts and other Central Texas chambers to compile reports of student performance data relevant to the business community.

"This is the [group of students] that's entering the workforce or is already in the workforce," Teo Yam said. "This is what your businesses and your community can get to hire. Is it a community of students that have generally pursued some form of post-secondary education? How many graduate within four years? And if you hire them, are they going to need remedial math [refresher classes]?"

Questions such as these matter to local businesses and to companies considering relocating to Austin, she said, and the reports can be used to gauge the health of a district.

In Austin ISD, 80 percent of students graduated within four years in the 2010–11 school year, the most recent year for which graduation data was included in the report, compared with 79 percent in 2009–10. The district's graduation rate goal for 2011–12 is 93 percent. District officials said to bridge the gap, AISD's integrated improvement plan will emphasize teacher efficacy and professional development.

Vincent Torres, AISD board of trustees president, said the district has also focused on attendance and offering more activities.

"Those are things that we're doing to try to get kids to stay in school first, because if they're not in school, they're not going to learn, and if they're not learning, they're not going to graduate," he said. "For us, you've got to move further back in the pipeline to be able to solve the graduation problem."

The reports also examine the percentage of a school district's graduating class that is deemed college- and career-ready in math and language arts, a classification that is based on state performance measures.

The reports provide direct-to-college enrollment rates—the percentage of graduates who went on to enroll in a university, community college or technical school immediately after high school.

"I was very pleased with the report overall, especially with the high college enrollment rate of 71 percent and the narrowing of the gap in state test results," Round Rock ISD Superintendent Jess Chvez said. "But [the college enrollment rate] can always be improved—that includes students enrolling in technical and trade schools, not just four-year college programs."

The chamber has invested in Financial Aid Saturdays, partnering with districts to encourage students to apply for financial aid and post-secondary education enrollment in Central Texas, Teo Yam said.

The reports cover 11 school districts.

Teo Yam said this year's reports are unique because districts statewide are continuing their transition to the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STARR, exams. The reports include information on how fifth- and eighth-graders performed in reading, math and science on the statewide assessments.

"We will be reviewing the Progress Report Task Force recommendations and incorporating similar wording when we revise our district improvement plan for 2013–14," said Kathy Hickok, Pflugerville ISD director of accountability and assessment. "The areas identified in the progress report are areas already being addressed by our district, so incorporating the recommendations are a natural fit."

Also new this year, the reports include data on students' post-graduation activities. Partnering with the Ray Marshall Center at The University of Texas, the chamber has been tracking students using employment records and wage records for four years after graduation, she said.

"There is this interdependency," Teo Yam said. "The business community needs the talent that the district generates, and the district needs the business community to help support [it] as well."