Where you send your child to school is one of the most important decisions you can make. The “on time” application window closes on Feb. 3 for charter schools on Oakland Enrolls (that’s tomorrow!) and on Feb. 10 for OUSD schools.
We want to highlight some of the schools making progress with Oakland children, and encourage families to visit. Every child is different, and we will break it down by student groups (schools showing progress with Black, Latinx and English Language Learner students) and highlight schools that have open seats for next school year (we publish this weekly). You can also take a look at the Oakland Enrolls and OUSD school finder tools to find local schools.
But before I get to all the public schools with the highest performance in math and English Language Arts(ELA) for African American elementary school students, 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. Dirk wrote about the perils of using tests exclusively to judge schools.
Some elementary schools that showed the highest performance in ELA for Black students were AIMS College Prep, Cleveland, Crocker Highlands, Lincoln, Thornhill and Yu Ming ; and in math, the highest performing schools were AIMS College Prep, Chabot, Crocker Highlands, Lincoln, Thornhill and Yu Ming.
Digging into the Data
The data source we’re using for this is the California State Dashboard, which includes information from both district and charter schools. The California School Dashboard contains reports on measures of school progress for every school in the state. A school receives one of five status levels (from very low to very high) across six state measures used to compare schools across the state: Academic Performance (ELA and math), Chronic Absenteeism, College/Career Readiness, English Learner Progress, High School Graduation Rate and Suspension Rate. You can learn more about the Dashboard here. The results I analyze here are for Black elementary school students.
2022 CA School Dashboard English Language Arts Performance: Black Students
| School Name | School Type | Student Group | Status Level |
| AIMS College Prep Elementary | Charter | African American | Medium |
| Cleveland Elementary | District | African American | Medium |
| Crocker Highlands Elementary | District | African American | High |
| Lincoln Elementary | District | African American | High |
| Thornhill Elementary | District | African American | High |
| Yu Ming Charter | Charter | African American | High |
2022 CA School Dashboard Math Performance: Black Students
| School Name | School Type | Student Group | Status Level |
| AIMS College Prep Elementary | Charter | African American | Medium |
| Chabot Elementary | District | African American | Medium |
| Crocker Highlands Elementary | District | African American | Medium |
| Lincoln Elementary | District | African American | High |
| Thornhill Elementary | District | African American | High |
| Yu Ming Charter | Charter | African American | Very High |
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 Round 2 opens this month, so get your applications in. Your children are counting on you to do the best by them, and that starts with making informed choices.
You have the tools, now use them.