Ingenuity State of the Arts Report 2016-17 Ingenuity_SOTA_2016-17 | Page 28
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THE ARTS IN CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS
A CLOSER
LOOK: CHANGE
OVER TIME
To what extent are the increase in survey participation and the increase in
schools rated Strong or Excelling related? Is the increase in schools receiving
the highest ratings due to the diminishing percentage of schools that
provide incomplete data? Or is the increase a consequence of improvement
among schools that have reported in previous years?
A deeper look at the data shows that the increase in the percentage of
schools rated Strong or Excelling occurred in spite of, rather than because
of, the large increase in survey participation in 2016–17. A total of 51 more
schools completed a survey in 2016–17 than in the previous year. Those
new responders were considerably less likely to receive ratings of Strong or
Excelling than were the schools that reported in both years. Among those
schools that did report in 2015–16, a full 71 percent of schools were rated
as Strong or Excelling in 2016–17. The comparable rate among schools that
did not report in 2015–16 was only 36 percent. 9
Among the 565 schools that reported in both 2015–16 and 2016–17, the
percentage receiving ratings of Strong or Excelling jumped this year. This
occurred because 104 schools—more than 15 percent of the district—moved
into one of these two categories this year. In contrast, only 74 of these
schools were rated as Strong or Excelling in 2015–16 but dropped into the
Developing or Emerging categories this year. And, as we have reported in
previous State of the Arts reports, the large majority of scores (387, or 68
percent) did not change from one year to the next.
Taken together, these numbers show that the overall improvement in
schools rated Strong or Excelling in 2016–17 came primarily among
schools that responded in previous years, not because of high scores
received by new responders. The CSC continues to act as a road map for
schools to expand arts education opportunities for their students, which is
reason to hope that a continued high level of engagement by CPS schools
will drive ongoing improvement in the district’s arts education ecosystem.
SCHOOLS THAT REPORTED TWO YEARS IN A ROW PERFORMED BETTER
IN 2016–17 THAN SCHOOLS THAT DID NOT
71%
INGENUITY | STATE OF THE ARTS
Reported
in 2015–16
36%
565
schools
9
Did not
report in
2015–16
66
schools
Excelling
Strong
Developing
Emerging
Incomplete
Among the smaller subset of schools that reported for the first time ever in 2016–17,
the rate was 30 percent.