Throughout this report, data are presented in tables that
contain the number and percent of students in the five major ethnic
groups defined by the Office for Civil Rights. In most cases
the data are broken down further into the nineteen major ethnic
groups used by the City of Seattle. The term “American
Indian” refers to any person having origins in any of the
original peoples of North America who maintain cultural
identification through tribal affiliation or community recognition.
“Asian” refers to persons having origins in any of the
original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, the Indian
subcontinent (India), or the Pacific Islands. The
“Chicano/Latino” or “Latino” ethnic
group is used for persons of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central
or South American or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of
race. The term “African American” refers to persons
having origins in any of the African American racial groups who do
not consider themselves as Latino. The term “White”
refers to any person having origins in any of the original peoples
of Europe, North Africa, or the Middle East who do not consider
themselves as Latino or African American.
This report is descriptive in nature, and in most cases no
statistical tests or inferences about differences or changes in
scores are made. As we have done since the 1997 profile, we
continue to show selected outcome data by gender. A more extensive
analysis would be necessary to make statistically supported
inferences about program effects, differences in student outcomes
for various subgroups of students, or changes from one year to the
next.
This report presents student demographic data as of October 2005
and student outcome data for the 2004-2005 school year with
comparative data from previous years. Graphs showing the yearly
trends for the five major ethnic groups accompany each table, with
one graph showing trends based on absolute numbers and another
graph showing trends based on relative percentages.
All students with valid data are included in this report,
regardless of special needs (e.g., limited English proficiency) or
handicapping conditions. This report includes students enrolled in
12 regular high schools, 11 regular middle schools, 8 K-8 schools,
59 elementary schools, and 20 self-contained alternative schools
(including special education programs).
Notes
Some changes have been made in the Student Test Score
Achievement section of this profile. The Iowa Test of Basic Skills
(ITBS) was not administered to grades 5 and 8 in Spring 2005 as
these students are transitioning to the State-mandated Washington
Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) test. Additionally, the ITBS
language subtest was optional for grade 3 students and also is not
reported for Spring 2005. The Direct Writing Assessment (DWA) is
also no longer reported here as it is now an optional school-based
vs. District-based assessment tool.
