A Guide to Identifying Similar Schools to Support School Improvement

Title:	A Guide to Identifying Similar Schools to Support School Improvement
Description:	To support school improvement efforts, school leaders and education agencies might need to identify groups of schools that are similar so that schools can compare their performance or share practices with other schools in the same group. This could also allow education agencies to provide tailored supports to schools in a group. This guide describes how an education agency can select a distance measure (a statistical rather than a geographic measure) to identify schools that are similar to a target school, using a variety of characteristics that enable school leaders to better understand their schools’ relative performance. This guide is based on work done with the Nebraska Department of Education and is designed to help staff in other education agencies who are interested in implementing a similar approach to support school improvement.
Online Availability:	Download, view and print the report as a pdf file. (1MB)
Cover Date:	July 2021
Web Release:	July 6, 2021
Publication #:	REL 2021096
Center/Program:	REL
Associated Centers:	NCEE
Authors:	Douglas Van Dine, Bruce Randel, and Mary Klute
Type of Product:	Tools
Keywords:	Schools • characteristics of • school improvement
Questions:	For questions about the content of this Tools, please contact: Amy Johnson.