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Bonnie O’Keefe
Brandon Lewis
Jennifer O’Neal Schiess
Publication is a new website from Bellwether Education Partners designed to help local education leaders design, use, and sustain an effective school performance framework (SPF). 

Title image for Bellwether website "," October 2019

In the past decade, SPFs have become an increasingly popular way for school districts to measure and communicate information about school quality. Whether locally designed or adapted from state rating systems, SPFs vary greatly in their goals, design, metrics, and target audiences. 

Building on key lessons and analyses of five cities with long-standing SPFs — New York City; Chicago; Denver; New Orleans; and Washington, D.C. — this website answers these questions: 

  • What are SPFs? 
  • How can they be used effectively? 
  • What are the key design and process considerations leaders should address?

The website is organized around three potential purposes an SPF can serve: 

  • System Management and Accountability: Leaders at a district or system level use the SPF to define school performance, track progress, and inform decisions such as school improvement, interventions, expansion, opening, or closure.
  • School Continuous Improvement: Principals use the SPF to understand how their school is performing, identify key strengths and weaknesses, and inform school strategy and management decisions.
  • Family and Community Information: Families and community members use the SPF to inform the choice of where to send their child to school, and/or understand how their school is performing and engage with school and district leaders. includes multimedia profiles and resources from locally focused SPFs, which provide useful examples and lessons learned for system leaders. Visit the site to learn more, and for more detailed analyses, download our companion report