A new study by the Data Quality Campaign reviews school report cards issued by each state, “noting how difficult the report cards were to find, whether they included some information required by state and federal law, and how easy it would be for a parent or other layperson to understand.”

As Sarah Sparks explains

Under both NCLB and the new ESSA federal laws, states are required to provide annual report cards on student performance in schools and districts, and the federal government has since provided grants to all states to develop longitudinal student data systems, in part to give parents and policymakers richer information about student achievement.

Most states do not do a very good job with the report cards, the Data Quality Campaign finds, which makes it hard for parents to compare schools.

Earlier this year, Mike Petrilli wrote for EdNext about the test score reports parents receive showing how their children have done on Common Core-aligned tests and at efforts to make these reports easier to understand.

He writes

As promising as these new score reports and web sites are, however, they are still just works in progress. They all have a tendency to soft-pedal the bad news to parents

– Education Next