Purpose

The 2005 Community Educational Accountability Survey provided school districts with benchmarking information about their educational accountability to the community, compared to other districts of similar geography and size.


Methodology

The 2005 Community Educational Accountability Survey was a telephone survey of residents in 7 school districts.  The districts that were surveyed included Battle Creek Public Schools, Harper Creek Community Schools, Kalamazoo Public Schools, Lakeview School District, Mattawan Consolidated School District, Paw Paw Public Schools, and Portage Public Schools – all of which are located in Southwest Michigan. A total of 400 district residents were interviewed in each of the 7 school districts.  All of the districts included in the study were geographically in the same region and similar in enrollment. The survey instrument was identical in all districts for comparative purposes. 


Research Issues

The 2005 Community Educational Accountability Survey addressed six areas including: communication and information; trust and accountability; community engagement; fiscal responsibility and support; educational delivery; and school improvement. In addition, the 2005 Community Educational Accountability Survey included several questions designed to provide a demographic profile of respondents including: gender, age, children attending district, years in district, and voted in a school election.


Outcomes

Each district that purchased the program received three report documents:

2005 Community Educational Accountability Survey - General Results

This report was an overview of the general results of the 2005 Community Educational Accountability Survey across all 7 districts.  The report was written in an easy-to-read, easy-to-understand format and included a description of the survey process, and research results.  The general results report was designed and written for anyone who wanted to use the information from the survey, without requiring a statistical background.  The general results report was distributed to all participating districts that purchased the study. 

2005 Community Educational Accountability Survey - District Detail

The district detail report details the results for the individual district.  As with the general results report, the district detail report was written in an easy-to-read, easy-to-understand format.  It was designed and written for anyone who wanted to use the information from the survey, without requiring a statistical background.  The district detail report was only distributed to the specific district and not to other districts.

2005 Community Educational Accountability Survey - Statistical Reference Book

This book lists the 2005 Community Educational Accountability Survey results for the specific district, analyzed by a number of different variables such as age, gender and years in the district.  This reference book was not intended to be read from cover to cover, but to be used like a dictionary to look up additional information about a certain topic or survey question.  The statistical reference book was only distributed to the specific district and not to other districts.


The 2006 Community Educational Accountability Survey

The second CEAS project, the 2006 Community Educational Accountability Survey, was conducted in early 2006.