Central Howell Elementary School

Silverton, OR · Grades K–8

Salem, OR

Neighborhood

Decoded Rank

All factors combined

Middle 40% decoded

#39 of 102

Salem, OR schools

Performing as Expected

#302 in OR

Achievement Rank

Raw test performance

Middle 40% achievement

#34 of 102

Salem, OR schools

#431 in OR

places from achievement to Decoded Rank

Decoded performance is roughly in line with expectations for this school's context.

Data confidence:Medium193 students tested 8 years93% participation

Confidence is computed from sample size, year coverage, and participation rate. Higher confidence means the rank shift is stable across years and not driven by a single small cohort.

  • Tested students: total students with valid scores across all reported years.
  • Years of data: number of school years included. More years smooths year-to-year noise.
  • Participation: share of enrolled students who took the assessment. Low participation can bias scores.

What's driving this rank

Decoded Rank: #39 of 102

in Salem, OR schools

Each component below is scored on a 0–100 within-metro scale. A qualitative band summarizes where the school lands.

  • Below averagePerforms above what its context predictsCounts for 35% of the rank

    After accounting for income and demographics, does this school beat what the data would predict?

  • StrongStudents gain ground year over yearCounts for 30% of the rank

    Are kids at this school learning faster than typical for the metro?

  • About averageEquity within the schoolCounts for 15% of the rank

    Are students clustered at similar levels, or split between top and bottom?

  • LowDirection over recent yearsCounts for 10% of the rank

    Is this school's Decoded Rank trending up or down across the years we have data for?

  • StrongMost students were testedCounts for 10% of the rank

    Was the rank computed against a representative share of the school's students?

Show the numbersFor the methodology-curious

Each component is converted to a 0–100 within-metro percentile (100 = top of the metro). "Contribution" is the percentile-points the component adds to (or subtracts from) the metro median before the schools are re-ranked into the composite.

Per-component contributions to this school's Decoded Rank composite. Weight is the share each component carries; percentile is the school's within-metro score on that component.
ComponentWeightPercentileContribution
Performs above what its context predicts 35%39-3.8
Students gain ground year over year 30%94+13.2
Equity within the school 15%59+1.3
Direction over recent years 10%0-5.0
Most students were tested 10%93+4.3

How the Decoded Rank composite is computed

Why trust this?
  • Public data sources
  • Context-adjusted model
  • Confidence shown
  • Methodology published

This score uses state assessment data, NCES enrollment data, and Census ACS 5-year neighborhood data. The Decoded Rank adjusts for school context — student demographics, ELL/SPED service rates, and the socioeconomic profile of the surrounding tract — and shows how the school performs relative to expectation, not in absolute terms.

SchoolDecoder is one signal, not a verdict. Decoded Rank is a context-adjusted residual, not a causal claim about teaching quality. See full methodology →

All Rankings

How this school ranks across the metro, state, and among demographic peers.

ScopeAchievementDecodedShift
Salem, OR (102 schools)#34#39
OR (882 schools)#431#302
Among similar schools (6 peers)#2#1

Resource context

School inputs, not ranking points

These fields describe the school and surrounding neighborhood. They help readers interpret the page, but this is not a dollar-by-dollar or ratio-by-ratio scorecard and the fields here are not components of the Decoded Rank.

Enrollment
160
Free/reduced-price lunch
51.2%
Student-teacher ratio
22.9:1
Locale
Rural, fringe
School type
Regular public school
Enrollment model
Neighborhood attendance area
Neighborhood median income
$98,256ACS tract proxy
Neighborhood poverty
0.1%ACS tract proxy
SES index
71.3
Assessment data year
2025
CCD year
2024
ACS vintage
2020-2024

Within Silver Falls SD 4J: #6 of 11.Middle quintile in district. View district

Performance Spread

How students are distributed across the four state-assessment proficiency levels — L1: below standard, L2: approaching, L3: meets (proficient), L4: exceeds. This describes the shape of results at the school, not their height.

Students at this school cluster closely on the proficiency ladder.

  • Level 1 — Below standard38%
  • Level 2 — Approaching standard22%
  • Level 3 — Meets standard (proficient)27%
  • Level 4 — Exceeds standard12%

Performance Spread measures how evenly students are distributed across the L1..L4 proficiency ladder, treating the levels as an ordered scale (L1=1, L2=2, L3=3, L4=4) and weighting each by its student share. A school where most students cluster at one level has a TIGHT spread; a school split between the bottom and top has a WIDE or BIMODAL spread. Bimodal fires only when BOTH tails are non-trivial AND the middle is relatively hollow (pct_L1 ≥ 15, pct_L4 ≥ 25, pct_L2 + pct_L3 ≤ 60). It describes shape — NOT how high the school's scores are. Methodology

Nearby Schools

Sorted by distance. Both rank columns shown so you can compare quickly.

SchoolAchievementDecodedShiftStoryConfidence
Pratum Elementary School#1#1Low
Valley Inquiry Charter School#38#65Medium
Bethany Charter School#9#20Medium
Evergreen Elementary School Rankings coming soon.
Hammond Elementary School#64#69High

Similar Schools

Schools with comparable demographics, income, and size. Both rank columns shown for direct comparison.

SchoolAchievementDecodedShiftStoryConfidence
Scotts Mills Elementary School#42#61Medium
Community School Rankings coming soon.
Ewing Young Elementary School#49#136Medium
Clemens Primary School Rankings coming soon.
Silver Crest Elementary School#25#62Medium

Historical Ranks

Year-by-year decoded and achievement ranks. Pandemic-affected years are excluded — we don't interpolate scores across the gap.

YearAchievementDecodedShift
2025#34#39
2024#36#22
2023#31#15

Note: assessment transitions (where a state changes its test) are footnoted on the methodology page; trends are not computed across breakpoints.

Trajectory

2023: percentile 622024: percentile 562025: percentile 39

Trending down

Based on 3 years (2023–2025).

Slope: -11.4 pct/yr (95% CI -50.1 to 27.3)

Low confidence

How this works: we fit a linear trend across the available years of Decoded percentile, then bucket the slope into a direction. Wide confidence intervals (uncertain trends) collapse to Holding steady. See the methodology page for thresholds.

Cohort Progression

Kids who started 3rd grade here in 2015 gained 51 proficiency points by 7th grade — gaining about 6× the metro median rate.

Cohort-to-cohort variance is high — interpret the headline cautiously.

Learning rate: +11.2 proficiency points/yr (95% CI 2.8 to 19.5)

Medium confidence

Cohort 20152016201720182019202320242025 Slope
ELA · started 8th in 2015
G8
244
ELA · started 7th in 2015
G7
259
G8
282
+22.9
ELA · started 6th in 2015
G6
273
G7
280
G8
307
+16.8
ELA · started 5th in 2015
G5
280
G6
217
G7
277
G8
288
+8.4
ELA · started 4th in 2015
G4
265
G5
289
G6
253
G7
293
G8
294
+6.3
ELA · started 3rd in 2015
G3
233
G4
245
G5
289
G6
253
G7
284
+11.0
ELA · started 3rd in 2016
G3
245
G4
248
G5
246
G6
267
+6.4
ELA · started 3rd in 2017
G3
243
G4
255
G5
236
-3.5
ELA · started 3rd in 2018
G3
239
G4
286
G8
300
+9.7
ELA · started 3rd in 2019
G3
265
G7
221
G8
228
-8.5
ELA · started 6th in 2023
G6
200
G7
200
G8
178
-10.9
ELA · started 5th in 2023
G5
239
G6
276
G7
300
+30.6
ELA · started 4th in 2023
G4
188
G5
226
G6
234
+22.7
ELA · started 3rd in 2023
G3
195
G4
228
G5
255
+30.4
ELA · started 3rd in 2024
G3
200
G4
239
+38.4
ELA · started 3rd in 2025
G3
169
Math · started 8th in 2015
G8
263
Math · started 7th in 2015
G7
247
G8
269
+22.3
Math · started 6th in 2015
G6
273
G7
300
G8
321
+24.0
Math · started 5th in 2015
G5
247
G6
244
G7
265
G8
307
+20.0
Math · started 4th in 2015
G4
259
G5
261
G6
253
G7
300
G8
332
+18.5
Math · started 3rd in 2015
G3
225
G4
214
G5
253
G6
247
G7
268
+12.0
Math · started 3rd in 2016
G3
210
G4
240
G5
204
G6
276
+16.3
Math · started 3rd in 2017
G3
236
G4
237
G5
193
-21.5
Math · started 3rd in 2018
G3
261
G4
268
G8
270
+1.4
Math · started 3rd in 2019
G3
280
G7
G8
182
-19.6
Math · started 6th in 2023
G6
187
G7
182
G8
171
-7.8
Math · started 5th in 2023
G5
195
G6
260
G7
270
+38.0
Math · started 4th in 2023
G4
G5
139
G6
206
+66.5
Math · started 3rd in 2023
G3
G4
200
G5
150
-50.1
Math · started 3rd in 2024
G3
182
G4
193
+11.4
Math · started 3rd in 2025
G3
188

How this works: we follow each grade-cohort across years through the school (3rd graders in 2023 are 4th graders in 2024, etc.) and fit a linear slope on a 100–400 proficiency-points scale built from the state assessment's four levels (L1=1, L2=2, L3=3, L4=4, weighted by student share). This is the same construction Stanford SEDA uses (edopportunity.org/methods); it's not student-level tracking — we measure the school's cohort, not individuals. See the methodology page for thresholds.

Evidence & technical detailClick to expand

School Alpha

School Alpha is the residual between actual and expected performance once school context is held constant. It is a context-adjusted estimate, not a causal claim about teaching quality.

Shrunk Alpha (95% CI)
-0.41 (95% CI: -0.55 to -0.27)

SES index components

SES method
Blended SES index (ACS + FRL)
SES index value
71.3
FRL %
51.2%
ELL %
SPED %
Tract median income (ACS 5-year)
$98,256
Tract poverty rate
0.1%
Tract % bachelor's+
25.8%

What "Decoded Rank" means

Decoded Rank converts School Alpha — the context-adjusted residual — into a parent-facing rank within the metro pool. A higher Decoded Rank than Achievement Rank means the school's raw scores understate its performance once neighborhood and school context are held constant. The reverse means raw scores overstate it. The rank is one signal, not a verdict.

Data & sources

Assessment data
2024–25 school year
NCES CCD vintage
2024
Census ACS 5-year vintage
2020-2024
Last updated
May 29, 2026
Methodology version
0.2.0

SchoolDecoder publishes context-adjusted residuals, not causal estimates. Decoded Rank is one signal — not a verdict on teaching quality. Read about limitations →