A quick guide to reading the newest California School Dashboard data

This database shows how local educational agencies and schools are performing on state and local indicators.

After a three-year hiatus, the California School Dashboard has been released, giving California educators and families a detailed snapshot of how the education system has been running post-pandemic.

The CSD is an online database, originally created in 2017, that shows how California’s education agencies and schools are performing on state and local indicators. It is a product of a 2013 law that changed how California funds public schools and holds local education agencies accountable for student performance.

The dashboard plays a pivotal role in the state’s school accountability system, providing up-to-date information on graduation rates, suspension rates, test scores, the progress of English learners, how prepared high school students are for success after graduation, chronic absenteeism and other more local indicators.

“It is our hope that the dashboard results will provide valuable information to educators about the effectiveness of learning acceleration efforts and other programs implemented to help all students thrive,” said California State Board of Education President Linda Darling-Hammond.

“Recovery from the pandemic has been a long process all across the country,” said Darling-Hammond. “While we have a long way to go, these results show that California is making strides, especially in enabling students to get to school and graduate ready for college and careers.”

The information released on Friday, Dec. 15 provides an overview of the 2021-22 and 2022-23 academic years.

So, how do you read it?

The CSD uses state and local indicators based on data collected from local agencies. Available to the public is data from all California public school districts and individual schools, including charter schools.

The state indicators are:• Academic (reported separately for English language arts/literacy and mathematics assessments)• English Learner Progress• Chronic Absenteeism• Graduation Rate• Suspension Rate• College/Career

Once the state data is collected — which is pulled from standardized assessments and local agency reports — it is categorized into one of five color-coded performance levels, something that is new this year. From highest performance to lowest performance, the five levels are blue, green, yellow, orange and red.

The levels are based on two factors: current year results and whether those results improved from the prior year.

Within these categories, the data is broken down further into specific student groups at the respective schools or districts. These groups include various ethnicities, socioeconomic and housing statuses, disabilities and English as a second language learners.

For example, the Irvine Unified School District was given an average “blue” performance level for English language arts. But within that data, the foster youth group and students with disabilities were categorized as “orange,” lower than the overall average.

The local indicators work a bit differently. They are broken down as:

• Basic Services and Conditions• Implementation of State Academic Standards• Parent and Family Engagement• School Climate (as measured by a local climate survey)• Access to a Broad Course of Study• Outcomes in a Broad Course of Study

County education offices are also measured on the coordination of services for expelled and foster youth.

These are rated much simpler than the state indicators, with just a “standard met” or “standard not met” rating.

This process is self-reported by local agencies using a guideline given by the California Department of Education through two options: submit a written narrative as to why they meet the respective standards or fill out a rating system for each standard and provide a brief explanation as to why they chose the rating.

Alongside the dashboard, the Department of Education created a communication toolkit for families and educators with resources and guides to assist in analyzing the newest data.

How is education looking across the state?

There are 5,852,544 students enrolled in California public schools. Of those, 61.5% are considered “socioeconomically disadvantaged” and 19% are English learners, meaning English is not the student’s first language.

Overall, English language arts and mathematics levels were given an “orange” rating, which is the second lowest performance level given. The suspension rate across the state has increased 0.4% since 2022 but chronic absenteeism has declined 5.7%. And there’s been an overall improvement in students’ graduation rates compared to the pre-pandemic period, which was 84.2%, but since 2022, the graduation rates dropped from 87.4% to 86.4%.

The data is “encouraging news,” said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, but “our work is not complete.”

“We have made an unprecedented investment in services that address the needs of the whole child,” said Thurmond. “We can see that those efforts are paying off, but this is only the beginning. We need to continue providing students with the tools they need to excel, especially now that we are successfully reengaging our students and families, so we can close gaps in achievement in the same way that we have begun to close the equity gaps in attendance and absenteeism.”

Dr. Adriana Villavicencio, an assistant professor at UC Irvine’s School of Education whose research focuses on addressing inequalities for students who are typically marginalized because of race, ethnicity or immigration status, said the dashboard can be an important tool for state or district policymakers, as well as principals and teachers who are making decisions that improve educational outcomes for students.

However, she said there should be caution taken when reading the data.

“The dashboard provides a snapshot of academic outcomes and other outcomes related to school culture that are important for us to understand and track over time,” said Villavicencio. “At the same time, parents and educators should be careful about how to interpret the dashboard, particularly the color codes. For example, a green might signify growth in an area but still might mean there’s a lot of room to improve.”

“Ultimately,” said Villavicencio, “I hope the state will use the information not to punish districts or schools but to inform decisions about how to allocate resources where needed, particularly to serve English learners or emerging bilinguals (students who are continuing to develop their native language while also learning an additional language), who are still largely being underserved in California and nationwide.”