For years, families, educators, and local leaders have been asking for something simple but hard to find: a clear, accessible, and trustworthy way to understand how Atlanta’s public schools are doing—beyond a single score or letter grade.
Today, we’re reintroducing the Atlanta Schools Data Project (ASDP), an online tool built to meet that need. Designed with parents in mind, ASDP is a transparent, Metro Atlanta-specific way to explore school data that goes deeper than any existing rating system.
At its core, the Atlanta Schools Data Project is about agency. While data is powerful, we know it can never capture everything that makes a school community thrive. However, when families understand the data behind their schools, they can:
- Ask stronger questions
- Advocate for what their children need
- Hold systems accountable
- Celebrate educators and communities making real progress
For funders and local partners, ASDP provides a shared language and evidence base for decision-making. And for RedefinED Atlanta, it becomes a way to measure our own impact, deepen our partnerships, and ensure our work is aligned with what families say matters most.
Why We Built ASDP
The project began with a simple problem: How do we talk about “better schools” if we don’t have shared, reliable ways to understand school performance?
Families told us again and again that publicly available information was confusing, inconsistent, or outdated. Philanthropic partners wanted clearer signals to guide investment. And we knew that tools like the College and Career Ready Performance Index (CCRPI) and GreatSchools weren’t giving Atlanta communities the broader context behind school performance.
So, our team—in deep partnership with parents, educators, and data analysts—built something new: A tool rooted in transparency, designed for Metro Atlanta’s context and informed by community voice, that’s able to show both urgent needs and powerful bright spots.
ASDP has been shaped by community conversations every step of the way—including focus groups, parent partners, and the funders and organizers who joined our early listening sessions.
What We’ve Heard From Parents
Parent and community partners have shaped nearly every part of ASDP. Some of the clearest guidance we received:
- Use language people understand.
(“30 out of 100 students” beats “30th percentile.”) - Don’t hide the struggles—and don’t hide the strengths.
- Make equity visible, not optional.
- Show climate and discipline clearly.
- Give us context so performance isn’t judged without understanding the challenges a school faces.
ASDP exists because of this feedback—and it will keep evolving because of it.
What Makes ASDP Different
There are plenty of education dashboards and rating systems out there. But none provide the level of clarity, nuance, or local relevance that Atlanta families told us they needed.
1. Multiple measures—not one “grade”
Traditional tools like CCRPI roll everything into a single score that often reflects poverty, not school quality. ASDP breaks this apart so users can see: Achievement, Student Growth, Climate, Equity, Similar Schools, and Graduation Rate (when relevant). Families and local leaders can decide for themselves which categories matter most, and the data is available all in one place.
2. Real transparency into bright spots
Aggregated ratings often hide what’s working inside a school. ASDP lets users see details—like the percentage of Black students reading on grade level or the growth of students with disabilities—so strengths don’t get lost. While some schools appear low-performing on paper, ASDP highlights areas of real promise.
3. An innovative “Similar Schools” measure
This is one of the tool’s most powerful features. Instead of comparing a school to statewide averages, ASDP compares it to schools with similar demographics—mobility, poverty, and more—offering a truer sense of effectiveness. “Similar Schools” helps families evaluate school performance while avoiding unfair comparisons, offering them a better understanding of whether a school is making progress given its context. This metric also better captures K–3 instruction, something other tools often miss entirely.
4. Up-to-date, historically grounded data
We’ve often heard that other tools are displaying data that is several years old or non-comparable to previous years. ASDP fills those gaps by calculating our own similar schools’ scores, showing historical trends, not just a single snapshot, and using the most recent publicly available data, re-verifying consistently.
5. Built with and for Atlanta
GreatSchools uses the same template across all 50 states. ASDP was built specifically for Metro Atlanta’s context—its data sources, its needs, and its communities.
This means climate is a standalone measure (not buried inside equity), local nuances are highlighted, and the tool reflects what Atlanta parents actually asked for, from the color-coding to the “out of every 100 students” formatting.
What’s Next
Over the next several months, we’ll be featuring different components of ASDP, including:
- Real stories of bright spots revealed by ASDP
- How to use the ASDP
- What the data can tell us (and what it can’t)
As we refine the tool, we’ll continue asking for your insights and challenges. ASDP is a community resource—and its strength depends on the people who use it.
We’re excited to relaunch this work, not as a final product but as a living tool informed by Atlanta’s families, leaders, and advocates. If you’re curious about the ASDP or have ideas for improving it, we’d love to hear from you.
Together, we can build a more transparent, equitable, and community-centered way of understanding Atlanta’s public schools—and a future where every child has the opportunity to thrive.