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Mayors' Report Card on Education

Early in 2014, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings approached the Bush Institute with a unique, challenging idea: Create a scorecard for mayors to use in...

Early in 2014, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings approached the Bush Institute with a unique, challenging idea: Create a scorecard for mayors to use in evaluating their cities’ major school district.

No such national scorecard existed, at least not one that uses several comparable data points. Accepting the mayor’s request, the Bush Institute, along with the Collaborative Communications Group, set out to prepare this report.

The result is the Mayor’s Report Card on Education, which is being presented today at the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ annual winter meeting in Washington, D.C.

The Bush Institute is committed to advancing the accountability of our nation’s campuses, which starts with making sure schools have a rich amount of data. Schools can’t know how to improve the achievement of their students without knowing where those students are progressing and where they are falling behind.

In this report, you will see data that shows graduation rates, ACT scores, trend-lines on National Assessment of Educational Progress exams, average teacher salaries and early childhood availability. This report card includes information for each of the 33 cities analyzed.

The data can show mayors how they can engage their school districts. It also can help them talk with each other about improving public education.

At the same time, we hope this report card illustrates for parents, educators and policymakers how they can advance the schools within their communities. The information presented here is only a starting point. Yet it can point the way for the leaders, citizens and taxpayers of major American cities.