Best And Worst Oregon Schools List Released

 Oregon officials have identified the state's best and worst-performing low-income schools. The new list is required under a federal waiver Oregon received last month.

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The No Child Left Behind law meant that only high-poverty schools faced sanctions for missing benchmarks.

But the old system did rate all schools as either “meeting” or “not meeting" the standard.

With the federal waiver of the law that Oregon got, there's a new emphasis on how much students improve. And schools receiving federal money for low-income students remain the only ones being rewarded or sanctioned.

However, Oregon's new system for rating schools - a set of three lists – will only include schools receiving federal poverty money.

The lowest-performing five percent are listed as “priority schools”. Schools in the next-lowest ten percent are called “focus schools.”

The state’s chief education officer, Rudy Crew, says he wants to see the additional funding at those schools lead to quick improvement.

“In my mind, this is now. This has got to happen.”

The state has also identified the top performers – called “model schools."

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What the columns mean:

Receiving improvement $?: Is the school receiving a School Improvement Grant from the U.S. Department of Education?

Federally funded: Is it a “Title I” school, receiving federal money for its high-poverty population?

List:  Schools could be on the “Priority” list for the bottom 5% of Title I schools, or a “Focus” school if it’s  in the bottom 6-15% of “Title I” schools, or a “Model” school, if it’s among the top 5% of Title I schools. Most schools aren’t on any of those lists. Schools may also appear on the "focus" or "priority" lists if they're receiving School Improvement Grants.

Overall raw score: is a number from 20 to 100. 100 is the best score possible.

Ratings: Level 5 indicates a high-performing school. Level 1, low-performing. 78 schools are either “not rated” or have a “pending” rating.

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