Clusters of schools and school systems were developed to facilitate the comparison of school performance. Clusters provide an additional base of comparison that can be used along with trends as well as state and national comparisons. In the Council for School Performance 1995-96 Performance Reports, a cluster is a group of schools or school systems with similar characteristics. Clusters are based on demographic characteristics such as the percentage of students eligible for free or reduced price lunch, students. These characteristics are important because they substantially influence student performance.
Clustering allows for more meaningful comparisons.
The schools within each cluster face similar challenges in educating their students. Therefore, based on demographics, the performance of the school can be expected to be similar to the performance of other schools within the cluster. The differences in performance between schools or systems within a cluster are more meaningful than the differences between schools or systems in different clusters. Comparing a school or system to others within a cluster provides better information for interpreting school performance. We grouped schools according to grade level and school enrollment before clustering on the factors previously mentioned.