Have you ever driven by a school and seen one of those signs: “California Distinguished School”. This is a big deal for schools. When a school gets one of these awards it is a boon for their reputation in their community and it reinsures parents that the education their child is getting is of top quality.
This year, California will give out similar awards – but the schools that are eligible are significantly wealthier than the average school. And, statistically, they are not really exceptional at all.
A bit of a history lesson: The Department of Education used to give an award called the California Distinguished Schools, which had safeguards in place to level the playing field for schools. While California still struggles to figure out its new accountability system, the Department of Education has created a temporary award called the “Gold Ribbon”. The Gold Ribbon does not have those safeguards that the distinguished schools program had – instead, the schools are eligible based on only one qualifier – if all their grades beat the average score across the whole state.
The Department of Education published a list of these schools a few weeks ago. Cross-referencing those schools with the Free and Reduced Lunch data (which is often used as an indicator of low income status), we can see that the schools that qualify have significantly fewer socioeconomically disadvantaged students .
The Median Gold Ribbon School has half the number of low income students as the Overall Statewide Average.
Furthermore, because many of these schools serve wealthier populations, their success is actually less impressive. As I noted in a previous post, the California Charter Schools Association did a marvelous study and came up with Similar Student scores for (almost) all schools in California. These scores take into account the demographics of the students to rate each school’s performance.
33% of the schools that qualified for Gold Ribbon are actually below average for their demographics. Furthermore, the median Similar Student score was a 7 – which is better than the average, but is not exceptional by any means. In fact, only 30% of the eligible schools received a score of 9 or 10 on the Similar School Score.
Basically, these schools are eligible because they beat the statewide average, but that doesn’t mean that these schools are actually good.
Of course, these schools are only eligible, and not necessarily going to win the award. The state then vets the schools through an application and observation process. It could possibly end up that the poorer and higher performing schools actually get the awards more often…
Except that doesn’t happen.
In 2015, the last time Department of Education gave the Gold Ribbon to middle and high schools, the median poverty indicator for the schools that actually received the award was 26%. So not only are wealthier schools being invited to apply, but an even wealthier set are receiving the award.
School awards mean a lot to a educational community. They validate the teachers’ hard work, they increase the confidence of parents to send their children to those schools, and they challenge other schools to meet those high standards. We need an award system that recognizes schools of all socio-economic neighborhoods fairly – so that all parts of the state can be challenged to achieve.
Let me be clear – I am not suggesting that poorer schools should have lower standards. I strongly believe all students can succeed at the same level – and I try to prove that in my classroom every day. What I am saying, however, is that the inequities that plague our educational system are well documented – and we should be awarding schools that beat those inequities – not schools that reinforce them.