CONTACT: Alison Krupnick krupnick@uw.edu

206.221.3723 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Revised results for Minneapolis in new report on urban education Changes in citywide outcomes, due to reporting error in Federal data

Seattle, WA, October 9, 2015 A reporting error in Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights (OCR) data has led to revised results for Minneapolis in a new report on urban education. In Measuring Up: Educational Improvement and Opportunity in 50 Cities, researchers at the University of Washingtons Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) went beyond test scores, using publicly available data to develop nine indicators related to school improvement and academic opportunity. After the initial release of this report, a journalist from the Minneapolis Star Tribune brought to our attention an irregularity in the OCR data for the 2011-12 school year. The Minneapolis public school district also contacted us about our results. In response, we re-examined the data and discovered that a small set of schools made an error in the data they reported to OCR for 2011-12. Because of this irregularity, we have dropped these schools from the indicators that rely on OCR data. This impacts the Minneapolis results for ACT/SAT test-taking, out-of-school suspensions, and advanced math course-taking. The figures in the revised version of the report will reflect these changes. New results for Minneapolis:

ACT/SAT test-taking results for Minneapolis high school students in 2011-12 jumped to 12 percent from 4 percent.

Overall out-of-school suspension rates for 2011-12 are now at 7 percent, down from 10 percent. According to the new data, black students are 5 percentage points more likely to be suspended

than white students. The previous percentage point gap was 9 percent. Overall, 16 percent of Minneapolis high school students took advanced math in 2011-12.

CRPE regrets any confusion this may have caused and thanks Minneapolis Public Schools and the Minneapolis Star Tribune for bringing the data errors to our attention.

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The Center on Reinventing Public Education is a research and policy analysis center developing systemwide solutions for K-12 public education. CRPE is based in Seattle and affiliated with the University of Washington Bothell. CRPEs work is funded entirely through philanthropy, federal grants, and contracts. Learn more at crpe.org.