Where you send your child to school is one of the most important decisions you can make. The new school quality data was released by the state recently, and I wanted to highlight some of the schools making progress with Oakland children, and encourage families to visit. The OUSD high school fair is 1/10 and you can also take a look at the schoolfinder tool to find local schools.
But before I get to the public schools showing the most progress, let me give a warning. These numbers may be imperfect since it is the first rollout, and no number can capture a school, or the variation within it. So please take these lists as starting points and do your homework. I have written before about the perils of using tests exclusively to judge schools.
Digging into the new data
Everything I am showing here is publicly available on the OUSD website, though you need to poke around some. And now is the time to research and apply to schools in open enrollment. We have never had more options, easier ways to enroll, or more information about schools, so we need make the best choices we can. Families should also take a look at the Oakland school finder.
High Schools where students made the most gains and had the highest graduation rates
MetWest had the highest graduation rate and also showed increase. Several other schools showed up on both list as well, Leadership Public Schools R and D, ARISE, Oakland Charter High, Envision, McClymonds, and Unity.
And Skyline, COVA, Unity, Mack, Oakland Charter High, Castlemont and Envision were some schools showing progress in decreasing suspensions.
Note that gray lines mean that less than 30 students were tested, and the other colors relate to how high the average scores were. The five color-coded performance levels in order are: blue (highest performance),green, yellow, orange, and red (lowest performance).
6-12 Schools
There are fewer6-12 schools in Oakland, however Coliseum College Prep stands out for progress in both ELA (1st) and math (2nd), Aspire Golden State, Aspire Lionel Wilson and Madison Park each made progress in both ELA and math.
Knowledge is power
So please, take advantage of your options and the information at your disposal. There are enrollment fairs coming up from OUSD and Enroll Oakland over the next several weeks. Your children are counting on you to do the best by them, and that starts with making informed choices.
Let me know if I can help, and I will be doing future posting on middles and high schools, as well as subgroups.
You have the tools, now use them.
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You can see a similar listing of elementary schools here