Principals, instructional specialists, counselors and other school-based leaders are all striving to foster conditions that promote student learning.  Performance Matters™ empowers school leaders with a robust set of easy to use tools to continuously monitor student learning and to compare the effectiveness of instruction.  The following are two examples of how Performance Matters™ is used to address specific information needs of school leaders.

Principal Scenario:  "My school barely made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) last year and this year's proficiency targets have increased.  It is very important that we monitor student progress throughout the school year to ensure their readiness for this year's state exam."

Guiding Question:  "If our students perform the same way this year as they did last year, will we make AYP; and more importantly, are we on track to make AYP this year?"

Performance Matters™ in Action:  The AYP Accelerator is a monitoring and prediction tool for assessing your school or district's current status toward making AYP.  This powerful report integrates last year's test results for the currently enrolled students and their current progress on local assessments to illustrate your status toward meeting AYP.  In addition, the complex subtleties of the NCLB legislation, such as Safe Harbor, are incorporated to ensure you have a comprehensive picture of where you stand in relation to this important accountability measure.

Instructional Specialist Scenario:  "We have instituted a new math program with an emphasis on Algebra and we have invested in curricular materials to support it.  The program has not been adopted district-wide, and we have been selected as the pilot school.  Currently, only one of our teachers is using the new materials."

Guiding Question:  "I am interested in analyzing this teacher's student results in the Algebra standards vs. the rest of the school and district for students with like demographics.  Are the students who are being exposed to the new materials outperforming their cohorts based upon our local assessments?"

Performance Matters™ in Action:  Comparisons are a snap with Performance Matters™!  The chart below illustrates the comparison of student results for all Algebra strands for a specific teacher, the school and the district.  The information is limited for special needs students only to ensure that any inferences made from the results are based upon like student profiles.