In looking at ways to create a more holistic school evaluation tool, the Pennsylvania Department of Education conducted dozens of feedback sessions to solicit recommendations from more than 1,000 stakeholders around a new measure.

The Future Ready PA Index will serve as Pennsylvania’s one-stop location for comprehensive information about school success and will use a dashboard model to highlight how schools are performing and making progress on multiple indicators.

The dashboard approach to school reporting:  

• Increases emphasis on student growth measures, which incentivizes a focus on all learners and is less sensitive to demographic variables.
• Measures English language acquisition among ELL students, not simply performance on a test of grade level ELA standards.
• Incentivizes career awareness instruction beginning at the elementary level.
• Addresses the issue of unequal weighting of content areas in the current SPP.
• Provides indicators of student success after graduation.
• Increases the emphasis on student access to course offerings such as AP, IB, college credit, and CTE programs of study.
• Allows LEAs to include locally-selected reading assessments (Grade 3) and math assessments (Grade 7) as additional snapshots of student progress.
• Incentivizes schools to offer career pathways that culminate with high value, industry-recognized credentials.