The District Best Practices report helps to show how Michigan K-12 school districts are performing. The report provides three years of data on the following metrics:
- Student proficiency on state assessments
- Graduation and dropout rate
- Average K-3 class size
- General fund balance and per-pupil expenditure
- Salary data for district superintendents, principals and teachers
Note that the years referenced as “current” and “prior” are different for each metric, depending on data availability and reporting schedules. You can place your cursor over the data element to see the year being referenced for each metric.
See the Report Labels section in About the Data for information on when different metrics are updated.
Use the Location and Report Settings menu to select a school district, then click “Update Report.”
- Note: Statewide, ISD and school-level data are not available in this dashboard. Data for these entity types can be viewed using the Education Dashboard.
See the MI School Data Quick Start Guide for the basics of navigating the site and customizing a report.
Data for the District Best Practices report come from a variety of sources, including the following CEPI web-based applications for collecting student, employee and financial data:
Additional information comes from the Michigan Department of Education (assessment data) and the Michigan Office of Retirement Services (salary data).
Disclosure Avoidance
To protect the privacy of individual students, CEPI suppresses graduation and dropout data when values are less than 5% or greater than 95%. Secure users can log in to view unsuppressed data for their authorized location.
Report Labels
See the glossary for additional terms and acronyms used on MI School Data.
4-year Graduation Rate: The percentage of students who graduated, calculated using a four-year on-time cohort method. For more information, see the “Understanding Michigan’s Cohort Graduation and Dropout Rates” document under the Help and Training section on CEPI’s Graduation and Dropout web page.
Average Class Size K-3: The average number of students per class in kindergarten through third grade, derived from data reported to CEPI for staff and students. Staff data comes from the Fall Collection of the Registry of Educational Personnel. Student data comes from the Fall Collection of the Michigan Student Data System using audited counts of student enrollment FTE.
Dropout Rate: The percentage of students who left high school permanently at any time during the 4-year period of enrollment beginning with ninth grade, or whose whereabouts are unknown once the expected year of graduation is reached.
General Fund Balance: The assets and liabilities of a district. The fund balance is the total of assets minus liabilities, and can be either positive or negative. Data come from the Balance Sheet file submitted through the Financial Information Database.
Salary Data: Salary information is provided by the Michigan Office of Retirement Services using salary credited for retirement through the Michigan Public School Employees Retirement System. ORS provides a compensation number for each employee from which the minimum, maximum and average compensation are then derived for each employee group (teacher, principal and superintendent) by district. Compensation is defined by retirement law.
According to ORS, individual compensation numbers can change throughout the year, due to situations including previous pay period adjustments and prior period corrections. In some scenarios, compensation numbers may even change for previous school years; so, it is possible that when the data are refreshed for the new school year, the prior year’s data may be updated for accuracy as well.
Salary data are updated each year in the early spring.
Students Proficient in Math and English Language Arts 3-8: The percentage of students in grades 3 through 8 who scored at the proficient or advanced level on the M-STEP in both math and English Language Arts. The M-STEP is taken in the spring, and scores are updated in late summer.
Students Proficient on M-STEP 11th grade (in all subjects): The percentage of 11th graders who scored at the proficient or advanced level on all subjects on the MME exam. The subjects are SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing, SAT Math, M-STEP Science, and M-STEP Social Studies. The MME is taken in the spring, and scores are updated in the summer.
Data Calculations
Average Class Size K-3: Both staff and student data are reported on a full-time equivalent basis for this calculation. In cases where a staff assignment spans more than grades K-3, the teachers’ FTE was proportionally allocated to the K-3 portion of the assignment. Ungraded students are not counted in this calculation. Teacher assignments are counted in the school and district as reported in the Registry of Educational Personnel. Teachers reported with an assignment in a school outside of the district that reported the teacher are counted in the school where they provide instruction. The FTE student data includes instruction provided as “shared time” in a nonpublic school setting. Similarly, teachers’ nonpublic school assignments are included.
Graduation and Dropout Rates: More detailed information regarding how graduation and dropout rates are calculated as well as historical graduation and dropout data can be found on the Michigan Cohort Graduation and Dropout reports web page.
Instructional Expenditures per Pupil: Calculated using function code 100 data reported in FID and FTE reported in MSDS.
