I finally got around to sorting state-level test score data, something I’ve been meaning to do since the Academic Performance Index release last month. (Boy, is it harder than it should be. Those mismatched column headers…)

Five of Oakland’s schools are up in the top 100 — roughly 1 percent of all public schools in California — when sorted by API: the three American Indian Model charter schools, Montclair and Hillcrest.

The American Indian Public Charter School in East Oakland’s Laurel District was the highest-performing middle school in the state, with an API of 988. (Not including schools with K-8 or 6-12 grade configurations, whose middle school scores aren’t broken out here.)

Here are some more data points:

• Only nine schools in the top 100 educate a “significant” number of low-income students, as defined by NCLB (which means they need to report the scores of that group of kids); three of those nine are the American Indian Model schools.
• None of the top 100 schools had aggregate scores for black students or special needs students, meaning their numbers are too small. And while Latino children make up nearly half of California’s public school population, their scores are included at just eight of the 100 schools. Read the rest of this entry »

The Oakland school board’s committees are discussing some important things this week. I figured some of you might want to weigh in on these items before they come before the full board. You can find a list of upcoming meetings and download the agendas here.

TONIGHT: At 5 p.m., the Teaching and Learning Committee goes over a revised work plan for realizing the superintendent’s vision for the school district. They’ll talk about task forces, regional leadership teams (NEXOs are out; REXOs are in), and other elements of the strategic plan. The committee will also do a more detailed test score analysis with the district’s new data toy, visualization motion charts.

At 6:30 p.m., the Finance and Human Resources Committee is reviewing Results-Based Budgeting, a system that 1) specifies how funds are to be allocated to schools (currently, by each school’s average student attendance), and 2) allows principals and (in theory) school councils to decide how to spend those funds.

Read the rest of this entry »