Tuesday, October 8, 2013

2012-13 Dropout Data Available for Review

ESE announced last week that the 2012-13 dropout data is available for districts to review. Dropout rates are factored into ESE's accountability determinations for high schools and districts, so now is your chance to ensure the data are accurate! The announcement from ESE is as follows:

"ESE has posted 2012-13 Annual Dropout data to the Security Portal for districts to review and make corrections to individual student data. Aggregate rates have not yet been provided. ESE will not accept corrections through email or over the phone. The only mechanism to make corrections to these data is through the October SIMS submission. ESE will make the final rates publicly available in January 2014 once the October 2013 SIMS data have been certified and the calculations have been completed. 

Data are located under "Dropout Data Summary Report" on the Security Portal at https://gateway.edu.state.ma.us/. The application can be accessed with a username, password, and the SIMS Data User role. Should you or your staff have any questions on the correction process, please contact your District Support Specialist. A list of those individuals is located at http://www.doe.mass.edu/infoservices/data/fts.html. The deadline to correct these dropout data coincides with the October SIMS submission deadline, which is November 7."


As a reminder, dropout rate is one of the core indicators in the Progress and Performance Index (for districts and high schools). All groups with dropout data (districts, schools, and subgroups) are expected to halve the gap between their annual dropout rate, if one exists, and a rate of zero percent by the 2016-17 school year. For accountability determinations in any given year, the annual; dropout rate for the prior year is used. Next year's (2014) PPI will utilize the dropout rate data from 2012-2013 (this allows ESE to use a data set that has been thoroughly reviewed by district and ESE staff).