Washington scores a "B" for school data accessibility, new study shows

Washington ranks high on transparency about students' learning progress since the COVID-19 shutdowns, but the state's website can still be tricky to navigate, a new study finds.

Why it matters: Lack of data can make it hard for parents to choose a school for their child using state report cards that are mandated by federal law , or to put pressure on struggling schools.

The big picture: After the pandemic, student absenteeism skyrocketed, achievement gaps grew, graduation rates fluctuated and English learner proficiency suffered.

• School closures also exposed deep systemic inequalities in school technology access , teacher shortages and transportation. Failures to report the pandemic's lasting effects hurt efforts to address them.

What they did: A grading system developed by researchers with Arizona State's Center on Reinventing Public Education to judge state websites found most states make it hard to find pre-COVID data to compare with where students are today.

Zoom in: Washington earned a "B" based on the availability of data for student performance and other metrics going back several years.

• It's among only 16 states to earn an "A" or "B," per the study.
• The state earned a "fair" grade for the overall usability of its report card website .

Zoom out: Thirteen states received "F" ratings, with Maine, New Mexico and North Dakota earning zero points of 21 under the grading system.

By the numbers: A comparison of publicly available Washington data shows the percentage of students who missed fewer than two days of school per month dropped from 91% in 2019–2020 to 70% in 2022–2023, the last year for which data is available.

• The percentage of students who met grade standards in English language arts, math and science fell from 60%, 49% and 47%, respectively, in 2018–2019 to 51%, 39% and 43% in 2022–2023.
• Standards data for 2019–2020 is missing from the state's website.

What they're saying: "We completely redesigned the State Report Card several years ago with the help of broad community engagement and testing," Katy Payne of the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction told Axios in an email.

Yes, but: The state is still aiming to improve the site in the near future and make it more user-friendly, said Payne.

• For example, she said, designers are looking to make the long sidebar used to click into different datasets less challenging to use on a phone.