The California Department of Education is releasing today its second fully comprehensive California School Dashboard as part of its accountability system for the state's public schools. With multiple measurements highlighting key areas, the Dashboard provides an update of how local schools and districts are progressing.
"The California School Dashboard should provide parents and community with a better understanding of how their schools and districts are performing across a variety of indicators," San Bernardino County Superintendent Ted Alejandre said.
This is the California School Dashboard fourth public release of data, but only the second year that includes all six performance markers of the statewide measurements, as well as four local indicators. With its range of data, the Dashboard provides educators and parents detailed information that pertains to goals, priorities and planning supported through district's Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAP), and more fully addresses equity and disparities among student subgroups.
The six statewide performance indicators reported in today's Dashboard include: College and Career Readiness; Chronic Absenteeism; Suspension Rates; English Learner Progress; Grad Rates; and Academic, which includes state testing results in English language arts and mathematics.
For each of the indicators, districts receive school-wide and student subgroup color-coded performance levels in the six statewide performance indicators. The colors range from blue (highest) to green, yellow, orange and red (lowest). For example, in the College and Career indicator, two county districts - Apple Valley Unified and Fontana Unified - scored with "blue," the highest-level, with rates above 55 percent.
In addition to the six statewide measurements, four local indicators based on information collected by districts, county offices and charter schools include: Basic Services and School Conditions; Implementing State Academic Standards; Parent Engagement; and School Climate. Also, county offices of education provide local indicators on coordination of services for expelled students and foster youth.
A key element of California's comprehensive accountability and continuous improvement system for K-12 schools is that the Dashboard helps identify schools and districts in need of additional supports in specific indicators. This is the third year the Dashboard data informs the Statewide System of Support, which provides for county offices of education to assist districts and schools with determining strengths and weaknesses, and areas where intensive support called Differentiated Assistance is needed.
County offices of education, along with the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence, provide Differentiated Assistance for local educational agencies when student group performance in two or more indicators record the lowest measurement, identified by the color red.
Three county districts - Central, Etiwanda and Mt. Baldy - have not been in Differentiated Assistance from 2017-19. Eight other districts - Alta Loma, Baker Valley, Colton, Cucamonga, Fontana, Mt. View, Oro Grande and Snowline - no longer are eligible for Differentiated Assistance. Twenty-two county districts remain or moved into Differentiated Assistance for 2019.
Two years ago, San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools launched a countywide Open Data Portal that optimizes a range of data sets, including Dashboard data for county districts, and can be viewed at http://ed-data.sbcss.k12.ca.us.