Study Gives Edina Schools Respectable Grades for Achievement Gap

Edina students perform better than most in the state—but some groups continue to lag their wealthier, white peers, according to report cards the Minnesota Campaign for Achievement Now (MinnCAN) released last month.

Edina’s achievement gap is significantly more variable than most school districts. Where others often have comparable gaps across groups, Edina’s differences swing widely depending on the groups being compared.

Black students at the high school level lag white students by 52.4 percentage points, and low-income students are behind 37 points. Both categories are notably worse than the state average.

But Latino students are just 11 points behind white students—about a third of the 30.3-point state average. Meanwhile, Asian students actually do 2.5 points better than their white peers compared to 13.7 points behind statewide.

The achievement gap is a persistent problem across the state. While Minnesota's public schools excel in test scores, the achievement gaps between white kids and students of color—and low-income and high-income students—are still significantly larger than national averages.

In a March report, the MinnCAN sliced and diced public school data and published "report cards" for every school and district in the state, grading them in five categories:

• Student performance (average percentage of students who are proficient or above across reading and math)
• Subgroup performance (average percentage of low-income, black and Latino students who are proficient or above in reading and math)
• Achievement gap (average difference between the percentage of low-income and minority students and percentage of non-low-income and white students who are proficient or above in reading and math)
• Performance gains (average one-year change among a cohort of students who are proficient in reading and math)
• Four-year cohort high school graduation rates

Two Edina schools fared particularly well. Edina High School was first among high schools in English language learner performance, and Highlands Elementary tied for first among elementary schools in Asian student performance.

Click here to take a look at grades for individual schools.