California School Dashboard

February 16, 2023

Newsom’s big bet on fixing California's poorest schools and narrowing achievement gaps

Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing the biggest changes in a decade to the state system of funding and governing schools.

John Fensterwald, Emma Gallegos, And Daniel J. Willis

December 15, 2022

Chronic absences rise to record levels in California, but so do graduation rates

Alarming chronic absence rates are included with student data from 2021-22 accompanying a revived California School Dashboard.

John Fensterwald

Commentary

November 1, 2022

California's accountability system is failing English learners

The California School Dashboard masks the needs of English learners, leading to low expectations for these students and resulting in many districts not planning for their support and success.

Martha Hernandez

Commentary

June 9, 2021

Leaving ‘apples to oranges’ behind, California has a chance to paint a true picture of our schools’ performances

Pandemic has created a window of opportunity for California to add a growth measure to the dashboard for evaluating schools.

Annette Gonzalez

Testing and Accountability

May 3, 2021

California state board likely to adopt long-awaited ‘student growth model’ to measure test scores

The new method of tracking individual students' Smarter Balanced scores should provide a more useful measure of schools' and districts' progress.

John Fensterwald

Commentary

April 28, 2021

Let's commit to a positive school climate to reconnect and heal as pandemic recedes

Educators and policymakers alike must listen to students to understand what they need to heal and recover from the traumas of the past year.

Meghann Seril

Commentary

November 4, 2020

California’s misleading K-12 dashboard could lead to closure of the wrong schools

Dashboard calculations of school performance can obscure the success of schools helping students who are several grade levels behind.

Steve Rees and David Osborne

Commentary

April 14, 2020

In pandemic’s wake, California needs to rethink system of support for schools

When the coronavirus crisis has run its course, all of California’s schools and districts will need help to get back on their feet.

Daniel C. Humphrey

Podcast

December 13, 2019

How are students — and schools — doing in California?

This week: LA County Superintendent Debra Duardo cites low performing student groups' progress, while USC Professor Morgan Polikoff faults the dashboard design.