Education Dashboard

The Education Dashboard provides a quick overview of data and information about Michigan’s public schools, districts, and regional education agencies. This dashboard makes it easy for the public to find information about schools. Metrics can be used to see how an individual school, district, ISD, or the State of Michigan as a whole is performing.

Each metric focuses on a narrow area to give an estimation of performance in a wider area. Metrics are grouped into:

• Student Outcomes
• Culture of Learning
• Value for Money
• Salary Data

Metrics are provided for both the current and prior year, allowing users to compare and see trends. Hover over the values to see when data were collected. Click on any hyperlinked metric to see more detailed data. 

The report is updated at various times throughout the year as data are available.

Historical Changes

• In school year 2020-21, there were approximately 130 sponsors that served breakfast and 150 that served lunch through the National School Lunch Program. In a non-pandemic year there are over 800 sponsors serving school meals. In school year 2020-21, most school districts in Michigan provided meals through a different child nutrition program, the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP), which allowed schools to serve free meals to all children in Michigan. The SFSP does not collect or require data on free and reduced eligible children.
• Due to the suspension of state assessments, assessment data for the 2019-20 school year is not available for M-STEP, MI-Access, SAT, PSAT or ACT WorkKeys. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States Education Department issued a waiver of the federal requirement that Michigan students take statewide summative assessments during the 2019-20 school year, as well as for waivers of related accountability and report card requirements. Executive Order 2020-65 waived state requirements for these assessments.

Use the Location and Report Settings menu to select a location.

See the MI School Data Quick Start Guide for the basics of navigating the site and customizing a report.

Location Options

Locations Setting options: Statewide, ISD, District and School

Logged-in Users

Users with secure access who are logged in can see unsuppressed numbers for the entities for which they have been specifically authorized.

Education Dashboard metrics are grouped into four categories.

1. Student Outcomes
   1. Students Proficient in English Language Arts at the End of Third Grade (3rd Grade M-STEP): Shows the percentage of third graders who scored at a proficient level on the M-STEP assessment for the current school year. The M-STEP test is taken in the spring, and scores are updated in late summer.
   2. Student Academic Growth 3-8: The Michigan Department of Education calculates student growth using the Student Growth Percentile. SGP groups students with a similar score history in a given subject and compares their performance on the most recent test. The dashboard reports the average SGP for the combination all students and all subjects tested in grades 3-8.
   3. Students Proficient in Math and English Language Arts 3-8: Shows the percentage of students in grades 3-8 who scored at the proficient level or above on the M-STEP test in both math and English Language Arts.
   4. Students Proficient on M-STEP 11th grade (in all subjects):The percentage of 11th graders who scored at the proficient level or above on all subjects on the Michigan portion of the MME exam. The subjects are M-STEP English Language Arts, M-STEP Math, M-STEP Science, and M-STEP Social Studies.
   5. SAT Total Score: The SAT Total Score reported for Michigan is the combined Evidenced-Based Reading and Writing, and Math Student Score. The Total Score range is 400-1600.
   6. SAT College and Career Readiness Benchmarks: SAT Benchmarks represent the likelihood of success in entry-level college courses. The benchmark is 480 for Evidenced-Based Reading and Writing and 530 for Math. For additional information on understanding SAT scores, including the Essay scores, please visit the College Board website.
   7. 4-year Graduation Rate: The percentage of students who graduated, calculated using a four-year on-time cohort method.
   8. Dropout Rate: The percentage of students who left high school permanently, or whose whereabouts are unknown.
2. Culture of Learning
   1. Total Breakfast Participation as a Percentage of Total Lunch Participation:The number of students participating in the School Breakfast Program as compared to the number of students participating in the National School Lunch Program.
   2. Free/Reduced Lunch Participation by Eligible Students: Shows what percentage of students who are eligible for Free or Reduced Lunch are taking advantage of the program.
   3. Economically Disadvantaged Students: The percent of students who have been determined to be eligible for free or reduced-price meals via locally gathered and approved family applications under the National School Lunch program, are in households receiving food (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) or cash (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families) assistance, are homeless, are migrant, are in foster care, or, beginning in 2017-18, certain MEDICAID eligible children. When any of these conditions are present, a student is considered economically disadvantaged.
3. Value for Money
   1. Districts with ongoing deficits for three consecutive years: Shows whether the district has been operating with a deficit budget for the past three fiscal years. If the scorecard is set to reflect an ISD or the State level, this will show the number of districts that have operated at a deficit for three fiscal years. This is collected every year.
   2. General Fund Balance: These data are taken from the Balance Sheet file submitted through the Financial Information Database. This metric is available at the district level only.
   3. Instructional Expenditures per Pupil: The sum of expenditures in function codes 1xx and 293, divided by the pupil FTE reported for the location in the fall general collection.
   4. Average Class Size K-3: The average class size is derived from data reported to CEPI for staff and students. Staff data is taken from the Fall Registry of Educational Personnel Collection. Student data is taken from the Fall Collection of the Michigan Student Data System using audited counts of student enrollment. Both staff and student data are reported on a full-time equivalent basis for this calculation. In cases where a staff assignment spans more than grades K-3, the teachers’ FTE is proportionally allocated to the K-3 portion of the assignment. Ungraded students are not counted in this calculation. Teachers reported with an assignment in a school outside of the district that reported the teacher are counted in the school where they provide instruction. The FTE student data includes instruction provided as “shared time” in a nonpublic school setting. Similarly, teachers’ nonpublic school assignments are included.
4. Salary Data: Teacher, principal and superintendent salary information is provided by the Office of Retirement Services using salary credited for retirement through the Michigan Public School Employees Retirement System. ORS provides a compensation number for each employee from which the minimum, maximum and average compensation are derived for each employee group (teacher, principal, and superintendent) by district. Compensation is defined by retirement law, Public Act 300 of 1980, MCL 38.1303(a) Sec. 3a. Salary data are updated each year in the early spring. According to ORS, individual compensation numbers can be changed during the year due to situations including previous pay period adjustments and prior period corrections. Individual compensation numbers may even change for previous school years in some scenarios; so, it is possible that when the data are refreshed for the new school year, the prior year’s data may be updated as well to represent the most accurate picture of salary data.

If you have questions not addressed here or in the linked resources, please contact CEPI customer support at cepi@michigan.gov.

Disclosure Avoidance

To protect the privacy of individual students, CEPI uses data suppression rules whenever report settings would yield fewer than 10 students in a given group. Secure users can log in to view unsuppressed data for their authorized location.

Report Labels

See the glossary for additional terms and acronyms used on MI School Data.