Today we published a new page to APS Insights, School Comparison. This page uses the same data as the school profile, but allows multiple school selections and shows the results as a heat map:

School Comparison Example

The performance data points are color-coded to quickly show high and low performance. The color scale for each metric ranges from about the 5th percentile of school performance to the 95th¹.

Demographic data such as poverty or students with disabilities is not color-coded, but uses the color from the middle of the scale.

Including multiple indicators together helps give more context about a school. For example, displaying CCRPI next to Beat the Odds shows us an an indicator for overall school rating (CCRPI) next to a school rating indicator that adjusts for student population (Beat the Odds). Then, including indicators like proficiency and growth allow us to see specific factors that might be driving a school’s rating. And including demographic variables like poverty give us further context for school performance and differences across schools.

Note that on the actual tool, you can mouse over a metric to get a definition, or scroll to the bottom of the page for a list of definitions and links. There’s also a color toggle for users with red-green color blindness.

To make your own visual, visit the school comparison page.

1. In more technical terms, the color scale ranges from minus two standard deviations of APS school performance to plus two standard deviations. Standard deviations were calculated within school level and metric, and pooled across years.