Dashboard Metrics
Advanced Course Enrollment
Background
Campus Dashboard Metrics
Because of the importance of rigorous coursework to post secondary success and to support district efforts to increase advanced course completion, several districts across the country, including Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas and Oakland, have incorporated into their internal performance management dashboards metrics to monitor advanced course enrollment and performance. In focus group discussions conducted with over 2,600 educators throughout Texas, 95% of those surveyed found advanced course enrollment and performance information useful when reported at the campus level. When reported at the student level, the percent of respondents finding the information useful was notably lower (less than 90%). The implication is that this metric, though still valuable to teachers in preparing their individual students for advanced coursework, may be even more useful to principals and counselors in developing strategic, school-wide approaches to increasing enrollment and success in advanced courses.
Primary Metric
- Advanced Course Enrollment: percent of students currently enrolled in at least one AP, IB or dual credit (DC) course in the four core subject areas, with comparison to campus goal.
User Interface
Dashboard Example
Figure 1 shows the Advanced Course Enrollment metric as seen on the campus dashboard.
Figure 1 TSDS Campus Advanced Course Enrollment Metric
Status Definition
“Advanced Courses” include AP courses, IB courses, other advanced courses identified by the course level type, and dual enrollment (also known as dual credit courses).
The Status column is the percentage of students that are currently enrolled in an advanced course in the following core subjects:
- ELA
- Mathematics
- Science
- Social Studies
The Status indicator is determined by campus-specific thresholds (campus goals) which are set at the district level. The TSDS default threshold is 60% of eligible students enrolling in advanced courses.
Metric Status Indicator | Comparisons | |||
Metric Name | Sub-metric Name | Metric Status Indicator | Trend | Campus Goal (Delta) |
Advanced Course Enrollment | Red (Percentage) = if percentage of students is less than the campus goal Green (Percentage) = if percentage of students is greater than or equal to the campus goal | Current year to prior year | Campus goal and the calculated percentage of students | |
(a) The Value column displays the number of students enrolled in at least one AP, IB or Dual Enrollment core course out of the total number of eligible students on campus.
Trend Definition
Trend Indicators: Objective is to indicate Advanced Course Enrollment | |||
| Up green | If the value for the current time frame is more than 5 percentage points higher than the prior time frame, then display a gray arrow trending upward. | |
| Unchanged | If the value for the current time frame is less than or equal to 5 percentage points higher or less than or equal to 5 percentage points lower than the prior time frame, then display two gray arrows pointing outward indicating no direction. | |
| Down red | If the value for the current time frame is more than 5 percentage points lower than the prior time frame, then display a gray arrow trending downward. | |
The trend does not show for the first occurrence of a time frame since data is not available.
Delta Definition
The Delta column is the absolute value of the difference between the campus-wide percentage (Status column) and the campus goal (Goal column).
Delta Indicators: Objective is to indicate Advance Course Enrollment | ||
Metric Name | Campus Goal | Delta |
Advanced Course Enrollment | Set campus goal | Red (Delta Percentage) = if the calculated percentage of students is less than the campus goal Black (Delta Percentage) = if the calculated percentage of students is greater than or equal to the campus goal |
Periodicity
Best practice is to load the data for this metric after each semester’s enrollment is determined.
Recommended Load Characteristics | |
Calendar | Beginning of school year and mid-year |
Frequency of data load | Semester, Yearly |
Latency | Year |
Interchange schema | Interchange-StudentEnrollment.xsd |
Tooltips
The standard tooltips for the metric definition, column headers, and help functions display for this metric.
- Green metric status: OK
- Red metric status: LOW
- 'More' indicates drill down views for this metric
is ‘No change from the prior period'
is ‘Getting worse from the prior period’
is 'Getting better from the prior period'
Business Rules
The Advance Course Enrollment metric is the percentage of students that are currently enrolled in advanced courses in the following core subjects for the current school year in grade levels 9 – 12.
- ELA
- Mathematics
- Science
- Social Studies
“Advanced courses” are those defined as follows:
- PreAP courses
- PreIB courses
- AP courses
- IB courses
- Other advanced courses identified by the state of Texas AEIS accountability definition (see Appendix A)
- Dual enrollment (also known as Dual Credit courses)
Data Assumptions
- State-defined and locally-defined advanced courses in the core subjects are available.
Computed Values
The cohort is the set of currently enrolled students across all grades in the campus. Table 6 shows the calculation for the percentage of students enrolled. The results of the calculation display in the Status column.
| Metric | Calculation |
Percentage | Total of all students currently enrolled in one or more advanced courses in a core subject * 100 / Total number of students currently enrolled. |
Data Anomalies
Anomalies
- Campuses that only serve a single grade level will be missing data for any metric that requires students be enrolled on the campus in the prior year such as AP Completion.
- Advanced courses coded as Gifted and Talented or Honors only will not be included in this calculation.
- Advanced Placement results are often returned after 12th graders have graduated and are no longer enrolled on the campus. These students will not be included in the calculations.
- Advanced Course Enrollment may not be repeated until credit is earned or the first grading period has ended.
Footnotes
Footnotes are used to provide addition data information concerning the metric. Footnotes are sequential for the entire page. Therefore, a metric's footnote may not begin with the number 1.
Date of Refresh
Best practice is for the date of last data refresh to appear next the metric in the following format:
- (Through Spring Semester 2010)
Catagorizing AP/IB Courses
The designation of AP or IB should reside in the SIS. Occasionally courses are categorized as GT although AP may be in the title of the course. If the course is not categorized in the SIS as AP then it does not count as an AP course for this metric.
Implementation Considerations
Advanced Course Definition
Best practice is for developers to ensure that the definition of the exact courses that qualify as “advanced” include AP and IB courses, as well as those defined as advanced by both the state and those locally defined by the district. This mapping looks at the course characteristic type as coded locally. In the case of courses that are both AP and another type such as GT, the course should have the characteristic type of AP. If the other characteristic is recorded, the course will not appear as 'advanced.'
Campus Goals
Best practice to set the goals for each campus at the district level. A secure mechanism is required to allow the district to set and maintain those goals.
Indicator and Metric Definitions
- In researching best practices across leading districts, access to and completion of a rigorous curriculum was identified as a leading indicator of post-secondary success. With respect to advanced academics one way to definite this metric is the percent of students currently enrolled in at least one AP, IB or dual enrollment (DE) course in the four core subject areas. Other related ways districts measure this indicator include:
- Advanced Academics Completion: percentage of students who are enrolled in an advanced course and complete that course.
- Advanced Academics AP/IB: percent of students who are enrolled in an AP/IB course and are registered to take the AP or IB exam.
- Advanced Academics AP/IB: percent of students enrolled in at least one AP/IB course.
Drill Downs
Drill Down Views
The dashboards include the option to see more detail that is associated with a metric. Table 7 list the drill down views that are recommended for this metric.
| Grade Level Chart | Graph of test assessment detail by grade level and subject area | |
| Historical Chart | Graph of metric values multiple | |
| Student List | List of students who do not meet the threshold for this metric for the specified period. |
User Interface
Dashboard Examples
Figure 2 shows grade level chart for the Advanced Course Enrollment metric as seen in the campus dashboards.
Figure 3 TSDS Advanced Course Enrollment Grade Level Chart
Figure 3 shows historical chart for the Advanced Course Enrollment metric as seen in the campus dashboards.
Figure 3 TSDS Advanced Course Enrollment Historical Chart
Drill down Tooltips
Grade Level Chart:
- The number of students who met the student goal out of the total number of students considered for this metric will display as you hover over the bars of the graph.
- Green bar = met the campus goal
- Red bar = did not meet the campus goal
Historical Chart:
- The start and end dates and the percent value of the metric for that time period are shown as you hover over a bar of the graph.
- Green bar = student did meet the student goal
- Red bar = student did not meet the student goal