DOE's progress reports attract 9 of 12 biggest school districts

School districts all over the country have reached out to the city’s Department of Education to learn more about its school progress reports. Those districts are shaded in red on the map above. They include all of the local districts in Florida and New York State and nine of the country’s 12 largest school districts. (The other three districts — Hawaii; Houston*; and Clark County, Nev. — haven’t yet asked the DOE for progress report advice, according to DOE spokesman Andrew Jacob.)

The Netherlands; Denmark; Israel; Singapore; Ontario, Canada; Sao Paolo, Brazil; and Victoria, Australia have all talked with the DOE about the progress reports, according to Jacob. (He cautions: Just because a government has consulted with the DOE “doesn’t mean that all of them have created or are planning to create something like [the progress reports], of course.”) And last week as part of its tour of Tweed Courthouse, the department headquarters, a team of officials from Los Angeles heard a presentation about the progress reports.

The national governments of Australia and England have so far gone the farthest in replicating the progress reports. Chancellor Klein is headed to Australia next month, where education officials’ zeal to create progress reports has generated controversy. In England, schools secretary Ed Balls “seems eager to adopt” New York-style progress reports, the Guardian UK recently reported.

*In fact, DOE officials have talked with consultants who are working with the Houston school district about the progress reports, but they haven’t met with district officials themselves, Jacob says.