Yes. You read that headline correctly. You should not evaluate a school based on the current California School Dashboard….yet.
Out of the entire site, there is really only one part that is ready for primetime: the academic indicator. Those indicators use current data and they accomplish the goals that the state set out.
But the rest of the site is on pretty shaky ground right now. Readers know I am a huge fan of data, and believe in using it to support schools, but here are 4 reasons why I say the site isn’t ready yet:
- Most of the data is old. The data for suspensions, EL progress and High School Graduation is for the 2014-15 school year. That data is almost 2 years old. I think you can ask almost any teacher – a school can drastically change in that time. It is unfair to evaluate a school on data that old. I think what is most infuriating about this is that the dashboard doesn’t clearly say this. It is hidden in the belly of the site. To be fair, I have used old data in the past, but I have always made it clear to the reader. It is unfair to do this to schools and parents.
- Most of the data isn’t available yet. The site is littered with N/A’s – information that is not available. Local indicators, like whether a school has textbooks for all students, or the attendance data indicator, are not online yet. Those indicators may seem minor compared to academic performance, but they tell you a lot about a school and how it is run. College and Career readiness for High School also promises to be a very interesting indicator – including information from AP tests and A-G requirements. We just have to wait for those to come online.
- Scores can swing wildly from one year to another. As I pointed out in my last post, a school could go from green to red in just one year. You should wait for a couple of years of data to see how schools emerge over time.
- It doesn’t consider charter networks as districts. To me, this is my biggest let down. Charter networks, like Green Dot, Alliance, Aspire, Kipp, PUC, operate like districts in a lot of ways. They share back-office, they transfer teachers from one site to another, they have entire mini-beuaracracies. Yet the state still treats each individual charter school as independent entities and independent school districts. We deserve a system that tells us how the charter networks are doing overall.
Let me emphasize that I said that you should not use the CSD yet. I believe that this thing will be a strong indicator of school status and growth in the future.
So since the dashboard has improved over the API, yet it is still performing at a low level, I would have to give the dashboard a rating of: