03/28/2024

California’s new report cards: Which districts don’t make the grade?

About one-quarter of California’s school districts don’t make the grade in serving students — either in achievement or other areas assessed under the state’s new school report cards.

Oakland, Hayward, Antioch, Mount Diablo and Pittsburg unified school districts and East Side Union High in San Jose are among the 228 poorest performers in the state.

Most of those districts fail to meet benchmarks for one or two groups of students, particularly, with those who have disabilities. In East Side, for example, the district fell short in that category as well as with homeless and foster youth students.

The online color-coded reports released this week feature a five-tier rating of districts and schools, the first time in four years that the state is grading public schools. The new system replaces the Academic Performance Index, known as the API, that awarded a single number to reflect a school’s achievement and allowed for at-a-glance comparison among campuses.

The new report grades schools both on achievement as well as improvement, so a school district’s score may seem contradictory. Mount Diablo Unified, for example, failed in some areas for  homeless students, foster youth and African-Americans, even though graduation rates for black students grew by 8.2 percent, the most of any group in the district.

The California School Dashboard displays a 1-to-5 rating of schools’ and school districts’ achievement in math and English, based on last spring’s statewide tests. The dashboard also reflects graduation rates, English-learner progress and suspension rates.

But many parents find the new system confusing.

View Article