What Do School Report Cards Really Tell Us?
The relationships among factors reported on school district (SD) report cards were studied for 121 Tennessee SDs. The report cards provided data on student outcomes (achievement test scores) and SD characteristics. Relationships were studied through linear regression, Pearson product moment correlation, and Guttman’s partial correlation. Six research questions guided the study: (1) how SD characteristics currently provided on the report cards relate to academic achievement; (2) how reported SD characteristics relate to each other; (3) how SDs perform in terms of the SD and community characteristics reported; (4) whether reported SD characteristics represent all factors that influence student achievement; (5) whether outlier SDs influence this study’s findings significantly; and (6) how this study’s findings can inform educational policy at state and local levels. The eight factors studied accounted for only 26.5% of that which was related to mean student outcome (MSO) (test scores). Si
