School Rating Methodology

The CodeOpx School Score (0–100)

Every public school and district in our hub is scored using the same five-dimension formula:

School Score =
  40% × Academic proficiency
  25% × Growth vs state average
  15% × Equity (low FRPL gap)
  10% × Graduation rate
  10% × Resources (student-teacher ratio + spend)

1. Academic proficiency (40%)

Average of % math + % reading proficient on the most recent state assessment. For schools without published EDFacts data, we display "Insufficient data" — no extrapolation.

2. Growth vs state (25%)

How much the school's average proficiency exceeds (or trails) its state average. Computed as 50 + (school_avg − state_avg) × 1.5, clamped to 0–100. This penalizes schools that ride high local demographics without producing real growth, and rewards schools that lift outcomes above their state peers.

3. Equity (15%)

100 − FRPL%, where FRPL is the % of students eligible for free/reduced-price lunch (a federal poverty proxy). Schools serving high-poverty populations that still post strong proficiency rise quickly in our ranking — the opposite of how some rating systems work.

4. Graduation rate (10%)

The 4-year cohort adjusted graduation rate (ACGR), reported directly by state DOEs to EDFacts.

5. Resources (10%)

100 − |ratio − 14| × 4. We treat 14:1 student-teacher ratio as ideal and penalize moves in either direction. We do not penalize schools for low per-pupil spending — efficient schools shouldn't be punished for budget discipline.

Letter grades

• A+ 90–100 · Top-tier
• A 80–89 · Excellent
• B+ 70–79 · Strong
• B 60–69 · Above average
• C+ 50–59 · Average
• C 40–49 · Average
• D 30–39 · Below average
• F below 30 · Needs improvement

Data sources

• NCES Common Core of Data (CCD) — every K-12 public school directory, enrollment, FRPL, teacher counts. nces.ed.gov/ccd
• EDFacts — school-level proficiency on standardized assessments by grade and subgroup. www2.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/edfacts
• NAEP (Nation's Report Card) — state-level grade-8 proficiency, used for state baselines and 10-year trend curves. nationsreportcard.gov
• State DOE rollups — district-level proficiency and graduation rates pulled directly from official state files.

What we deliberately don't measure

• Parent reviews — easily gamed; not part of the score.
• "Diversity score" as a standalone signal — we publish demographics as raw data, not a rating.
• Test prep intensity — outcomes only.
• School ranking by family income alone — explicitly counter-weighted by the equity factor.

Data freshness

The current dataset is anchored on NAEP 2024 state averages, NCES CCD 2022-23 school directory, and EDFacts 2022-23 proficiency. Published 2025-08-12. Refreshed annually as NCES drops new data.

Corrections & versioning

Found an error? Email corrections@codeopx.com with the page URL and the specific stat. Methodology version history is tracked in our GitHub data repository (link coming).

License

Our derived ratings and citation-ready stat cards are licensed under Creative Commons BY 4.0. Free to use with attribution: "Data by CodeOpx · codeopx.com/schools".