The California Department of Education announced the names of 238 schools that serve large numbers of low-income children and have made substantial progress on state test scores. (Interesting that this comes right after Steven Weinberg’s post.) They’ll receive their awards April 21 in Disneyland.

And the winners of the Title I Academic Achievement Awards for 2009-10 are…

Berkley Maynard (Aspire, K-6, North Oakland)
Lionel Wilson (Aspire, 6-12, East Oakland)
Lincoln Elementary (OUSD, Chinatown)
Peralta Elementary (OUSD, North Oakland/Rockridge)
Oakland Charter Academy (Fruitvale)
American Indian Public Charter School (Laurel)

You might have noticed that four out of the six schools are charters, and that two of them are run by the same charter management organization. The two other charter schools, American Indian and Oakland Charter Academy, use a similar educational model which has been frequently discussed on this blog.

I wonder if administrators are looking at these schools for tips on narrowing the achievement gap. At Oakland Charter Academy, a middle school in Fruitvale that’s 91 percent Latino, the average API for Latino students was 944 out of 1,000. The English learners at Lincoln Elementary averaged a 935. Peralta’s African-American students averaged a 849.