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.
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.
Elementary Schools where students made the most gains
Five schools made consistently high gains in both math and ELA, Aspire Monarch academy, led both subjects, with the Francophone Charter school and Madison Park, Manzanita SEED, and Glenview all also showing substantial progress across both ELA and Math. You can also see the suspension rate changes as well as growth of developing bilingual students. But please click the chart and dig in some.
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).
K-8 Schools
There are fewer K-8 schools,
There are fewer K-8 schools but Greenleaf showed strong gains in ELA (highest gains) and math (3rd highest gains), ASCEND led growth in math and was second in ELA, Melrose also showed growth in both ELA and math. Lighthouse charter and Lazear showed real increases in math and Aspire Eres showed progress in ELA.
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. And I regularly share upcoming events in schools including visits.
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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