In order to receive a waiver for compliance with certain provisions of the No Child Left Behind act, the U.S. Department of Education required the state of Michigan to revise its statewide system for measuring school achievement. Below you will find a brief description of the new labels, and additional resources to obtain more information.

Reward Schools

• High Achieving - Top 5% of the statewide top-to-bottom ranking
• High Progress - Top 5% based on improvement over time
• Beating the Odds – schools that overcome traditional barriers to student achievement and outperform schools with similar demography and risk factors

Focus Schools

• Schools with the largest achievement gaps
• Based upon the gap between the top 30% of students in a school and the bottom 30% of students – from standardized test scores

Priority Schools

• Replaces the “Persistently Lowest Achieving” label
• Lowest 5% of the statewide top-to-bottom ranking

Note: Top-to bottom ranking rates schools based on achievement, improvement, achievement gap and graduation rate.

For more information on the new rankings:

www.MISchoolData.org

www.mi.gov/rewardschools

www.mi.gov/focusschools

www.mi.gov/priorityschools

www.mi.gov/ttb