Tool URL: NA

Institution URL: http://www.ous.edu

NA

Feedback Performance Report to each Oregon high school on the first year college participation, retention, and performance of their new freshman. Available at: http://www.ous.edu/dept/ir/reports/hsprofile/

How does a university determine how well a high school is preparing their students for success in college?

Performance feedback to high schools allows review and revision of high school teaching methods, curriculum, and academic strategies to help their graduates succeed in college.

Reports also roll up to Educational Service District level that will aid with detecting regional differences in college readiness.

Universities and high schools need to know whether students from specific high schools are performing college level work at, above, or below state norms. A report for each Oregon high school identifies the number of graduates from their most recent graduating class who attended a 4-year public university in Oregon the fall after graduation. High school academic performance using test scores and GPAs are compared to college performance including grades by subject area and retention to the second fall. Five year trends for the high school and counts of which 4-year public university students attended.

This tool is an academic performance report template populated by unit record data grouped by high school. The tool is an interactive web application allowing users to select an individual high school, or a school district, or a state report, and the desired year. There are currently seven years of reports available to select from pull-down menus. We began reporting student performance by high school about 25 years ago in response to a request from our High School Relations unit of Academic Affairs. Early reports tried to capture very detailed breakouts by discipline, with comparisons to statewide performance. Discussions throughout the years with the K-12 community and state education analysts led us to revise and substantially shorten the reports, include correlations to state assessment scores, add five-year trend data, and use graphic displays instead of data tables, and make it all available electronically. An additional benefit of developing this tool was the development of a stronger relationship with our high school counterparts. High schools can use the reports to make data-driven decisions about course offerings and student counseling. State education analysts request the underlying data files to do additional analysis, breakouts, comparisons and trend analysis. University administrators can use the tool to determine equivalence of student preparation by specific high schools, even by subject area, which can be useful in the admissions process. This report spurred another important study to determine if the high

NA

• number of "hits" on the website
• number of times a Board of Education agenda or report refers to the performance reports or to data in the report
• number of requests for "additional breakouts or information" or for the underlying de-identified data files for further analysis

Gives high school policy makers the tools to analyze the success of their efforts to encourage and prepare their students for college. With breakouts by subject area and comparisons to assessment scores, allows a comparative analysis by program areas of math, reading, writing, and science between the high school assessments and the college performance of their students.

high school curriculum design, teaching assessment, program review

• Gives high schools valuable feedback not attainable elsewhere
• Gives educational administrators and people moving to/around Oregon a valuable tool to compare the performance of various high schools or districts.
• Further identification of high school traits can allow different cohorts within a report - for example "students in rural high schools".
• Simpler displays and appropriate summaries are vital. Our initial reports were much too detailed to be useful.
• Work with your school district people to find out what they want to know about their students.

RESOURCES NEEDED

Must know who enters as a first time freshmen and the high school from which they graduated. Our report includes 10th grade assessment scores by each student requiring a separate data exchange with the pK-12 agency, though the report could be written without this. Requires complete information on college courses taken and grades earned. Requires enrollment information over two consecutive fall terms. Initial report takes some effort, but annual reports thereafter are straightforward.

COSTS

• If centralized unit record data are already collected, about one quarter of one annual FTE.
• Mailing of one hardcopy report with link to online access each year to each high school
• Ongoing maintenance and populating of website (IT costs)

May include neighboring states' high schools if there is sufficient enrollment from them.

http://www.ous.edu/dept/ir/reports/hsprofile/

LINKS TO OTHER RELEVANT INFORMATION

http://www.ous.edu/dept/ir/reports/

Jonathan Jacobs 
Institutional Research Systems Analyst 
Oregon University System 
P.O. Box 3175 
Eugene, Oregon 97403-0175 
Phone: 541-346-5727 
Fax: 541-346-5757 
jonathan_jacobs@ous.edu

SUBMITTED BY Bob Kieran 
Assistant Vice Chancellor for Institutional Research and Planning 
Oregon University System 
P.O. Box 3