Sacramento, CA – John Fensterwald’s article in Ed Source this week highlights a recent report that ranks the 50 states’ school accountability websites. The report, “State Secrets: How Transparent Are State School Report Cards About the Effects of COVID?,” gives the California School Dashboard a grade of “D,” due to the absence of key school quality indicators, such as student growth metrics, and the difficulty of viewing historical data. Oklahoma is the only state that earned “A” grades on both rating sets included in the report, reflecting user friendliness and access to a breadth of data. Helpfully, Oklahoma’s site places student performance levels side-by-side with student growth data, shown relative to state averages, along with chronic absenteeism and other key indicators.
California continues to add new data to its website but lags far behind other states in providing individual longitudinal growth data, which evaluate each student’s growth from the prior year. Such data arguably should be most important in charter school renewals, together with robust data on performance levels, but California does not provide individual longitudinal growth data anywhere yet. When Ed Source and the report reference longitudinal data, they include quasi-longitudinal data that track grade level cohorts.
Individual longitudinal data are superior to quasi-longitudinal data because, each year, students with different baselines enter and exit the school and student groups (English Learners for example) making class cohort growth analysis less accurate. California posts quasi-longitudinal “Change Over Time” data on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) reporting website. The Change Over Time results use scale scores without any context to interpret them. Additionally, the site does not facilitate evaluation of Change Over Time data relative to appropriate comparators, notably, similar students and schools.
Growth models, however, evaluate each student’s growth relative to the growth of other students with the same prior year scores. Comparing actual growth to expected growth based on similar student and school characteristics is a key concept in school accountability, yet such comparisons have been persistently absent from California’s school accountability system.
The State Board of Education (SBE) adopted the California Growth Model in 2021 but has not yet approved its incorporation on the California School Dashboard. The California Department of Education (CDE) anticipates posting 2024 California Growth Model data this winter. If the State Board approves inclusion of the growth model on the Dashboard, it will be a significant improvement, but it will not resolve all the Dashboard’s limitations.
The inaccessibility of key data makes it much more difficult to base charter renewals on robust evaluation of school quality. Authorizers can approve charter schools in the “middle” and “high” renewal categories after considering required data sources, namely the California School Dashboard and “verified data.” Where authorizers seek to deny, however—or where charter schools seek to provide authorizers with more robust data—additional analytics are needed to reach a sound conclusion, often requiring extra work from staff or consultants with appropriate expertise.
The following table identifies challenges with the Dashboard’s English Language Arts and Mathematics indicators and suggests analytics that can help address these limitations:
This past summer, the California State Board of Education conducted a study session to discuss opportunities to improve evaluation of student progress in state accountability systems. CSDC hopes to see a stronger school accountability system based on high quality data, with embedded supports to interpret the data in context.
For schools currently preparing for renewals, CSDC has numerous resources to aid charter schools and authorizers to conduct a more robust analysis of school quality. CSDC members can view the three-part Spring 2024 renewal webinar seriesand reach out for a consultation.
Request Your Renewal Worksheet
Interested in seeing how your school’s 2019 California Growth Model data compared to state scores, schoolwide and for student groups? Request your 2023 CSDC Renewal Worksheet, a benefit for CSDC Member Schools:
