Students at Ánimo Ellen Ochoa Charter Middle School in East Los Angeles are learning at one-and-a-half to two times the pace of their grade-level peers, based on their state standardized (CAASPP) test scores for the last three years compared to the average for the state.
But the California Department of Education has labeled Ochoa a “low performer,” based on how it ranks on various color-coded indicators on the California School Dashboard.
The department’s report of school performance — the state’s “dashboard” — is deeply flawed. For the 341 kids enrolled at Ochoa — 96% of whom are socioeconomically disadvantaged, almost all of whom are Latinx, and 24% of whom are still learning English — a flawed dashboard could lead to disaster. That’s because the school district could close the school based on its ranking.
Ochoa is part of the highly respected Green Dot Public Schools, a Los Angeles nonprofit educational organization, which was recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as a high-quality charter school operator during the Obama administration.
But in high-poverty middle schools such as Ochoa, students often arrive several years behind grade level. Few of them are “proficient” in math or reading. Ochoa’s students, while far behind, are making exceptional gains compared with students statewide. Yet the dashboard blends their test scores together with a year-to-year change measure that conceals both their high rate of growth and their low starting scores. These results only make sense when reported separately. They make no sense when blended together.
All but two states have viable measures of academic growth, designed to show whether students are catching up or falling further behind grade level. California does not.
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Written by David Osborne and Steve Rees.
