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 this week, and I wanted to highlight some of the schools making progress with Black children, and encourage families to visit.
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.
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. And there is an East Oakland Enrollment Fair this weekend and one in the West next weekend.
Middle Schools where Black students made the most gains
West Oakland Middle School is the leader in both math and ELA. This is the second year they were a leader in growth. Looks like some powerful work is taking place there. Bret Harte (I sat on the SSC there years ago) and Montera are showing solid gains on ELA and American Indian is showing significant gains in math.
(note that gray lines mean that less than 30 students were tested, and the other colors relate to how high the average scores were)
K-8 Schools
There are fewer K-8 schools, but Melrose stood out in both ELA and math and American Indian, Community School for Creative Education and Hillcrest stood out for gains, in either math or ELA.
6-12 Schools
Coliseum College Prep and Bay Area Technology Charter showed significant increase in both ELA and math, as did Aspire Golden State College Prep., Madison Park and Life Academy also showed real and consistent gains across subjects. This was the only grade configuration, where all the schools showed that showed growth showed it in both subjects, which may say something about the power of the 6-12 model to more broadly drive growth.
High Schools
Metwest, while being a small school, showed outstanding growth, followed by Envision, Mack, Ohigh and Tech, with Envision and Tech, showing not only growth, but also having relatively high levels of achievement for Black students.
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 other subgroups.
You have the tools, now use them.
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