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California Schools Case Study

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California Schools: The Transition From Concrete Numbers to Abstract Charts

In California, API scores were used to rank public schools in different districts, so that families and parents would have a better understanding of how good schools were in that district. The API scoring system indirectly affected real estate values in the given area. When schools had better API scores, more families and parents would have a desire to live in the area, therefore causing the prices of houses and properties to increase. "Education funding is local... almost entirely from property taxes," so much so that "about 80% of a district's property taxes are used to fund public schools" (Conrad and Wolf 329). API scores, which were based on standardized test …show more content…

This model is designed by using what are known as "Five-by-Five Placement Reports", giving prospective parents and students a good reflection of how a "school is performing on the state indicators" ("California Model"). For example, the 2013 API score for Hillview Middle School in Menlo Park was 950, whereas the spring 2017 California Accountability Model rank for Hillview was more complex (School Report - API Growth and Targets Met). The Suspension Rate among all students, which is one out of multiple state indicators, was a fully filled blue pie chart, the highest performance ranking a school can receive (California Board of Education). In correspondence to blue being the highest ranking, people can assume that green (4/5ths filled) is good, yellow (3/5ths filled) is average, orange (2/5ths filled) is below average, and red (1/5ths filled) is extremely poor and the lowest possible ranking a school can receive ("California Accountability Model & School Dashboard."). Each school receives a different level for each indicator, meaning that while a school may have a blue level for one indicator, they could have red for …show more content…

2017.
The California Department of Education. "California Accountability Model &
School Dashboard." California Department of Education, www.cde.ca.gov/ta/ac/ cm/. Accessed 26 Aug. 2017.
California Department of Education Analysis, Measurement, & Accountability
Reporting Division, compiler. School Report - API Growth and Targets Met.
29 July 2014. California Department of Education, api.cde.ca.gov/Acnt2013/
2013GrowthSch.aspx?allcds=41689656044150. Accessed 26 Aug. 2017.
"California Model Five-by-Five Placement Reports & Data." The California
Department of Education, www6.cde.ca.gov/californiamodel/. Accessed 26 Aug. 2017.
Conrad, Jessamyn, and Naomi Wolf. What You Should Know about Politics-- but
Don't: A Nonpartisan Guide to the Issues That Matter. 3rd ed., New York,
Arcade Publishing, 2016.
Mercury News. "No more API: California revising- in a colorful way- how its schools are ranked." Mercury News, 15 July 2016, www.mercurynews.com/2016/07/15/no-more-api-california-revising-in-a-colorful-way-how-its-schools-are-ranked/. Accessed 26 Aug. 2017.
"A New Education Law: Every Student Succeeds Act." California State PTA, capta.org/focus-areas/education/every-student-succeeds-act/. Accessed 26 Aug.

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It seemed to correspond to the No Child Left Behind implementation when leaders became focused on the school’s report

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