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.
But before I get to the public schools showing the highest graduation rates and most progress, let me give a warning. These numbers may be imperfect. The numbers don’t reflect if more high needs students came into a school, 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. I include data on graduation rates, change (how much scores went up or down from year to year) and status (overall scores), which together provide a more balanced look at school quality.
Digging into the Latest Data
Different schools often produce different results with different students so I will also produce blogs looking at schools showing results for Black, Latinx, API and other subgroups. So keep tuned. The results I analyze here are for Latinx students.
GO produced this report, looking at how low income Black and Latinx students are doing. You can view all the middle school results here. But let’s dig in a little on some of the schools showing results for Latinx High school students.
You can see earlier posts on on the data for all students for elementary schools here, middle schools here, and high schools.
I previously looked at some elementary schools showing results for Black students and middle schools too.
You can view all the high school results here.
We’ll start with A-G completion for Oakland public schools
Completing the A-G requirements is important because it allows graduates to apply to the UC and CSU systems. The Oakland public high schools with the highest A-G completion rates for Latinx students were Envision and Bay Tech with 100% completion rates; followed by Lighthouse, LPS Oakland R&D, Oakland Unity, Aspire Lionel Wilson and Met West. Big thanks to Dana Wellhausen from the Rogers Family Foundation for help pulling this data, which is hard to find and sometimes incomplete, from DataQuest.
Here are the college and career numbers for 6-12 schools
6-12 Schools with the highest college/career rates for Latinx students were: CCPA leading the way followed by Life Academy and Aspire Lionel Wilson Prep; with Aspire Golden State, Madison Park and OMI also have high status levels.
High Schools with the highest college/career rates for Latinx students were: Lighthouse and LPS Oakland leading the way; followed by Envision, Oakland Unity, MetWest, Skyline, Oakland International, Tech, and Oakland Charter High.
Graduation Rates
6-12 Schools with the highest graduation rates for Latinx students– Each of Baytech’s 13 Latinx 12th grade students graduated; Life Academy followed with a 96.2% graduation rate, with Aspire Golden State (94.7%); OSA (94.7%) and Aspire Lionel Wilson (92.7%) also posting strong numbers.
High Schools with the highest graduation rates for Latinx students– Lighthouse and Envision had the strongest rates; followed by ARISE, Oakland Unity, Oakland International, and Tech.
Here are the Math Scores for 6-12 Schools and High Schools
6-12 School Latinx Math Growth Schools are Below– Bret Harte and OSA were the only two schools to maintain their previous year scores, while each of the other eight schools on the list either declined or significantly declined.
High School Latinx Math Growth Schools are Below– Oakland Unity, LPS Oakland and Tech all significantly increased; Castlemont also maintained, while the remainder of the nine schools either declined or significantly declined.
Here are the Latinx English Language Arts Scores for 6-12 schools and High Schools
6-12 schools that made progress in ELA scores for Latinx students were Madison Park and OSA; EBIA, Aspire Wilson College Prep and Brete Harte all maintained their previous year’s score.
High schools that made progress in ELA scores for Latinx students were Castlemont and Fremont, while Oakland Unity, Tech and LPS Oakland R&D also increased.
Suspension Rate
6-12 Schools with the lowest suspension rates for Latinx students are Sojourner Truth Independent Study, OSA, Life Academy and CCPA.
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19 of the 24 High Schools, district and charter, listed have a suspension rate for Latinx students that is less than 5%.
Chronic Absence
6-12 Schools with the lowest chronic absence rates for Latinx students are Sojourner Truth Independent Study, OSA, Aspire Lionel Wilson and OMI.
Knowledge is power
please, take advantage of your options and the information at your disposal. There are enrollment portals for OUSD and Enroll Oakland and the window for round1 closes in early February, so get your applications in. 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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