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VA Department of Education Redesigns School Performance Report Cards

Virginia residents have just a little more time to provide feedback to the Department of Education as it redesigns public school performance report cards, which provide accountability ratings. The final product is not only supposed to allow users to sift through information more fluidly, but will also provide a more customized layout of demographics. 

Lawmakers mandated the redesign of school performance report cards that will more effectively communicate school status. Department of Education spokesman Charles Pyle says the current report cards are PDF files with lots of data in the form of statistical tables, but the presentations are "static" and not interactive.

"A number of states have report cards that really sort of bring the data to life--through graphics, pie charts, line graphs and so forth."

The DOE is looking at those report cards to get a better idea of how Virginia's should look. He says right now—until August 14th—state officials are asking the public to complete an online survey about what's important to them.

"They might want to compare for example, create a graph that compares the performance of different student sub groups within a school with the performance of those same students at the district and state levels."

The survey will ask what information beyond the accreditation rating and assessment results on state tests the respondent would like to access.  Pyle says the ANONYMOUS survey is 16 questions and takes about 20 minutes to answer. 

The survey can be found through the department’s website at:  doe.virginia.gov.

Tommie McNeil is a State Capitol reporter who has been covering Virginia and Virginia politics for more than a decade. He originally hails from Maryland, and also doubles as the evening anchor for 1140 WRVA in Richmond.