I recently completed a review of academic performance among Metro Atlanta´s elementary schools, and found some interesting things.
Readers of Cascade Patch will be excited to hear that West Manor Elementary ranked #17 out of 500 elementary schools in the metro area. While several schools in APS ranked highly, the only APS elementary school to outperform West Manor was the Drew Charter school.
The KIPP schools also performed well. However, because KIPP is just now adding a school which will serve grades K through 4, only the 5th grade scores were considered in this review. At the middle school level, once students were in KIPP for a couple of years, the results really start to impress. I will be posting a comprehensive review of Metro Atlanta middle school performance in the coming weeks.
My study considered academic performance on the 2011 state tests for grades three through six. School rankings were developed by comparing each schoo's performance to both the state average and schools with a similar level of needs (based on income, special education, English language learners, and ethnicity).
For more detail on the methodology and a complete listing of all 500 schools, visit my Grading Atlanta Tumblr page.
http://gradingatlanta.tumblr.com/post/24421806575/metro-atlanta-2011-elementary-school-rankings
