Oakland has high schools where just over 11% of Black students and 18% of Latinx students graduated with the A-G requirements and other schools where over 90% of students did. Numbers aren’t everything, but when it means graduating with the ability to apply to state schools as the A-G courses do, they mean a lot. And with such wide disparities, and such varying odds, it is critical that parents do their homework. So please take a look at the graduation rates for Black and Latinx students, and make a choice of school by the February 8th deadline.
Top Schools for Black Students
The UC/A-G rate is the key column to look at. Envision has done an outstanding job of graduating Black students with the A-G classes earning a 94% rate. Baytech and OSA were both over 90% and COVA high was at 81%. The top district school was Mack.
You can see the wide variation schools here.
Top Schools for Latinx Students
Aspire golden State led the way here with a 92% rate followed by MetWest, Envision, Oakland Unity, Leadership R and D, Arise and CCPA, all at 80% or above. Phenomenal work for all these schools and great to see Envision on both lists. And overall there are more schools with significant number of Latinx students that are doing relatively better.
Again you can see the variation between schools here in graph form.
Every Oakland parent has the right to apply to basically any Oakland public school during the open enrollment period which ends on February 8th. 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. Every child is different, and I will break it down into subgroups (schools showing progress with Black, Brown and low income students) in the next few weeks and you can also take a look at the schoolfinder tool to find local schools.
These numbers may be imperfect, 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. And not every school shows up. Schools with very few students in the graduating class were not counted. There also may be errors in data—as one school (Lighthouse) already pointed out. And finally, some schools, like Oakland International serve very high needs students (and serve them well) and the student population should be taken into consideration.
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 week. 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.
Thanks to David Castillo for putting the numbers together.
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