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 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 are for all students.
GO produced this report, looking at how low income Black and Latinx students are doing.
You can view all the high school results here. But let’s dig in a little on some of the schools showing the greatest positive changes.
You can see earlier posts on elementary schools here
Graduation Rates
High Schools with the highest graduation rates were: Lighthouse, Envision, ARISE, Oakland International and Oakland Tech, followed by MetWest, Oakland Charter High, Oakland Unity High and Mack.
High Schools with the Greatest Gains In Math
High School Growth, 9-12 Schools are Below– American Indian and LPS Oakland R&D showed the most gains in math overall, with Dewey, Oakland Unity, Fremont and Oakland Tech also making gains.
Here are the English Language Arts Scores
High Schools with exemplary progress were Fremont and Castlemont, while LPS Oakland R&D, McClymonds High and Oakland Unity High showed growth and Oakland International, Oakland Tech and Rudsdale maintained.
Graduation Rates
High Schools with the highest graduation rates were: Lighthouse, Envision, ARISE, Oakland International and Oakland Tech, followed by MetWest, Oakland Charter High, Oakland Unity High and Mack.
College and Career
High Schools that prepared students the most for college and career are: Lighthouse, LPS Oakland R&D, COVA, MetWest and Tech, followed by Oakland Charter High, American Indian, Oakland Unity, Oakland International and Envision.
Suspension Rate
High Schools with the lowest suspension rates Civicorps, COVA, Gateway to College at Laney, Opportunity Academy, Street Academy, and MetWest.
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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