In LAUSD, there are 23 schools that received a score of 95 or more on the School Quality Index score created by the Core Waiver program. A lot of praise has been heaped upon those schools – but I question whether they are really “role models” for the rest of LAUSD.
Schools with scores above a score of 95 have a higher percentage of white and asian students. Schools below 95 have significantly higher percentages of poor students, English learners, and Hispanic students.
So, this is a big quandary for me. Basically, these schools are getting high scores primarily because of ethnic and socioeconomic inequalities. Shouldn’t scores really highlight the schools that stand out compared to schools with similar demographics? Is it really fair to evaluate a school with 95% socioeconomically disadvantaged and 92% latino to a school with only 30% socioeconomically disadvantaged and an ethnically diverse student population
It seems unfair to me, so how can we make this more equitable? More on that, next time…