Resources available to help parents understand the California School Dashboard
Published: April 12, 2017
On March 15, the California Department of Education and the State Board of Education unveiled the highly anticipated California School Dashboard, a new online tool for measuring school and school district performance.
The new, multifaceted dashboard replaces the Academic Performance Index, an accountability system that assigned a single score to schools based on standardized test results. The dashboard replaces the old, one-size-fits-all approach of API by providing multiple measures of student learning and reporting those measures in a format similar to a student report card.
Assessing six state indicators and four local indicators (or six local indicators for county offices of education) using a color-coded, five-level pie chart ranking system, the new accountability tool provides a more nuanced and holistic account of school performance.
“A component of the Local Control Funding Formula, the new California School Dashboard is a useful tool for improving equity,” explained CSBA Legislative Advocate Teri Burns. “The dashboard provides information on student achievement, school climate and school performance, metrics that will allow for easier identification of areas that need targeted support.”
The dashboard is believed to be an important instrument for strengthening local control and ensuring that stakeholders are allocating resources to areas that require improvement.
Burns further said: “It is important for parents to familiarize themselves with their Dashboards, not just in order to be cognizant of general school performance, but also in order to track progress and disparities in multiple areas. The tools built into the dashboard can help parents be informed advocates when it comes to their children’s education.”
With incomplete and missing data, the current dashboard is still work in progress. Two state indicators — Chronic Absenteeism and College/Career Readiness — and information for other local indicators will be added to the dashboard as data becomes available. A complete version of the dashboard is estimated to be released by fall 2018.
CSBA has curated a variety of web resources available to help explain the dashboard to parents and the general public: