The new school dashboard system offers a more complete report, using color-coded pie graphs and charts.
“I think a parent will ultimately be able to get their head around it,” says Samantha Tran, senior managing director for education policy at Children Now. “[The reports] offer an ability to look at a number of different things that we value and care about in public education, and then providing that information in a way that people can understand and use.”
The dashboard is part of a massive three-year overhaul of the state’s school accountability system.
Test scores and a number of other factors will now determine school success -- including graduation rates, parent engagement, school climate and whether students are prepared for college or the workforce.
Blue and green marks on the dashboard show a campus is doing well. Those falling behind will show orange and red.
Many educators in the state favor using more than just test scores to measure school improvement, but worry that some low-income families won't be able to access the information because they don’t own a laptop or have Wi-Fi at home.
“One of the challenges we will have to face is making this tool available to those families,” says Elliot Lopez, chief information officer for the Sacramento Unified School District. “Given that this is purely web-driven and it’s difficult to transfer to a printed layout, that is something we’re figuring out how to address.”
One of the limitations of the dashboard is you can’t compare schools.
State education officials say that’s by design.
Under California’s new accountability system, the state is moving away from ranking schools and instead emphasizing that all schools should improve every year.
The California State PTA supports that new approach and has been testing the dashboard with parent focus groups.
“The purpose is to improve schools,” says Celia Jaffe, vice president for education with the California State PTA. “The purpose is not for ranking. It’s not for punishing. Showing how schools and districts are progressing in areas they’re working on is really an important aspect of this.”
But Tran and other education advocacy groups say the state still needs to figure out how it will identify the lowest-performing schools and what kind of corrective action to take. That's because new federal education regulations under the Every Student Succeeds Act -- which replaced the No Child Left Behind Act -- require that information.
“Federal law says that we need to focus on closing gaps in achievement,” Tran says. “While this dashboard will highlight if certain group's kids are behind, the way [California] sets the standards, it basically says any improvement is good.”
State education officials admit the new dashboard tool is a work in progress, and they are open to tweaking how the information is presented so the public can compare how different schools stack up.
The California Collaborative for Educational Excellence, one of the public agencies overseeing the state’s accountability system, is holding a series of workshops across the state to get more public feedback.
In the meantime, local school district officials are planning to host their own workshops and distributing information at campuses explaining how to navigate the new web-based system.
Here's our pick of the best resources provided by the California Department of Education:
California School Dashboard Fast Start Guide [PDF]
Getting to Know the California School Dashboard [PDF]
Frequently Asked Questions
