August 16, 2017—Amarillo ISD students will begin a new year ranked in one of the top 10 school districts in the nation for high achievement among low-income students, according to a national comparative index. The Education Equality Index (EEI) looked at data from 55,000 schools in 45 states to compare performance between low and high-income students and determine rankings.
The EEI used grade and subject-level data from state standardized tests for students who are identified as eligible for free or reduced-price lunch through the National School Lunch Program in 2015. In Amarillo ISD, more than two thirds of the district’s 33,000 students fall into this category. The EEI then used the data to assign a score between 0 and 100 to school districts, with 100 being the highest. Amarillo ISD’s EEI score is 67.7, earning the District a sixth place ranking out of the thousands surveyed. The average score for large cities is 49.2, and the average score for all cities nationwide is 50.
“From our school board to our administrators and educators, Amarillo ISD is consistently working to close the gaps traditionally seen in communities with vastly diverse demographics, like we have in Amarillo,” said Dr. Dana West, Amarillo ISD Superintendent. “We offer the same opportunity at each of our campuses, with 100 percent highly-qualified teachers who are 100 percent committed to our mission to graduate every student prepared for success.”
AISD has a variety of systems in place to support students of all backgrounds, income and learning, she said. “We have campuses that are completely dual language, campuses that offer Saturday school and homework clubs, working hand in hand with families to include parents in their child’s education, as well as robust intervention programs, and that’s just the 30,000 foot view.”
Additionally, when the EEI further broke down categories by population and poverty, it ranked AISD the nation’s top medium-poverty, medium-sized school district. This means among school districts with between 45 and 70 percent of students in poverty with a total enrollment between 21,000 and 45,000, AISD was the top performing school district. Other school districts in the top ten of this same group included Tacoma, Washington, Salem, Oregon and Evansville, Indiana.
The EEI is a collaboration of the non-profits GreatSchools and Education Cities and was created to measure the performance of students from low-income families across the country.
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