The indicators are divided between those statistics that are provided by the state, and those that must be provided by LEAs. The fall 2017 Dashboard release included the following state indicators:

• Smarter Balanced Assessments in English language arts and math
• English learner progress as measured by CELDT and reclassification data
• Graduation rates
• Chronic absenteeism rates
• Suspension rates
• College & Career Readiness(grades 9-12)

The current release of the Dashboard only includes one year of data for the chronic absenteeism and college and career readiness indicators, so these have not yet received color rankings.

The local indicator data uploaded to the Dashboard by LEAs include the following LCFF priority areas: basic conditions at school, school climate, implementation of academic standards and parent engagement. County offices will report on two additional priorities related to services for foster youth and expelled students. LEAs and schools upload reports about whether each indicator’s standards were “met,” “not met for one year,” or “not met for two or more years.” Meeting or not meeting the standard on local indicators is not related to LEA performance in those areas, but indicates only that they have completed the following required activities: 1) Measuring progress using local indicators; 2) Reporting the results at a regularly scheduled public school board meeting; and 3) Uploading and reporting the results to the Dashboard by December 1 each year.

Another component of the Dashboard is the Equity Report, which appears on the first page of an LEA’s Dashboard data. This indicator is followed by three categories: All Students’ Performance, Total Student Groups and Student Groups in Red or Orange.

It is in the Equity Report that advocacy groups see the most cause for alarm. While a district or school’s overall rating could place it in the yellow or even green area, a look at the breakdown by student subgroup can reveal a very different story.

For example, the first page of the Equity Report for San Francisco Unified School District shows a yellow ranking for English Language Arts and Mathematics. When broken down by student group, the data reveals four subgroups in the orange category and two in the red. Without drilling down into the report, the data would seem to indicate that the students in the school are performing on an average level. “What are we communicating if we are saying this is not a serious issue that should be flagged for additional support?” asked Tran.

Another area of discussion is how LEAs and schools are identified for support; there is nowhere on the current Dashboard that communicates that information. “The first step in addressing achievement gaps is a clear indication on the Dashboard of whether the school or district has been flagged for assistance from the state,” said Smith of Education Trust–West. “The state could also consider providing more information about which student groups prompted the flag for state assistance through this designation. Local stakeholders — from parents and students to educators and administrators — all have a role to play in the continuous improvement of a school or district. Not providing an easy way to see if their school or district is receiving assistance keeps the very community members who fought for LCFF in the dark.”

CSBA’s Teri Burns explained that the State Board has heard these concerns and is working to make the gap information more readily available. “We want to be able to see right upfront which schools aren’t serving specific student subgroups,” she said. “The local district piece is the need to set more aggressive and differential targets. The State Board will need to call upon districts to do that, and display that in their LCAPs or in their budgets in a way that is easily accessible to the public.”

Figure 1: Sample 5×5 Performance Grid

Source: California Department of Education

In an op-ed for EdSource, State Board President Michael Kirst and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson acknowledged that, while there is still some work to be done to improve the Dashboard design, “with the detailed information in the Dashboard, we have a rare opportunity to turn data into direct action. … Knowing our system’s strengths and weaknesses, and tapping into our state’s incredible network of experts, will help us accelerate this work so every student has the opportunity to succeed in college, the workplace and life.”

One recent point of contention between education advocacy groups and the State Board was the adjustment of “cut points” in the academic indicator in the fall 2017 Dashboard release. According to summary documents presented at the State Board of Education meeting, the new cut points took into account “the central premise of California’s Accountability and Continuous Improvement System, [which] is the consideration of necessary changes or improvements based on newly available data, recent research and/or stakeholder feedback.” The documents cite the availability of only two years of “change” data as the reason for the changes to the cut points: “When the performance standards were set for the Academic Indicator, only two years of Smarter Balanced Assessment data were available (2015 and 2016), producing one year of Change data. The distributions used to set the standards were positively skewed, … over 80 percent of LEAs experienced a positive change.” When the 2017 scores did not show nearly as much positive change, the current cut scores produced dramatic downward swings and were therefore adjusted to minimize the volatility of the swings. In fact, the changes added more districts and student groups to the orange category than the prior formula.

Smith at Education Trust–West questions the methods used by the SBE in changing these cut points. “There may occasionally be reasons to make technical adjustments to the Dashboard,” he said. “But this needs to be done through a transparent process and should be about improving the system, not watering down standards. We shouldn’t be sugar-coating schools’ performance to avoid providing state support for the educators doing the hard work on the ground.”

Education advocacy groups have flagged other areas of the Dashboard that are of concern. Both Children Now and Education Trust–West emphasized the importance of including students in alternative education settings now, while the Dashboard is still evolving. “It is critical that we include alternative education students now in the district-level data, as well as figuring out the school-level alternative accountability system,” said Tran. “If you break it out, one out of every five senior students in California is in an alternative education setting — and only one-third of those students graduate.” The State Board will be considering options for including alternative school ratings in the Dashboard this spring.

Another top-line item that advocacy groups would like to see in the Dashboard is related to tracking student growth. Whereas the current Dashboard tracks change between cohorts of students — for example, this year’s third-graders compared to last year’s third-graders — tracking growth would follow the trajectory of each student year by year.

“How is every child in that school making those yearly transitions?” asked Tran. “Ideally, if we are going to close gaps, are we seeing more than a year’s worth of growth in a year’s time? Tracking growth is one of the best predictors of the impact that schools can have on learning outcomes for students because it is really about the individual student. The CDE has committed to working on this, but we have not seen any analytical models on that yet that we can dive into.”

Added CSBA’s Billy, “We want the vision of LCFF and the Dashboard to become reality: to improve outcomes by directing more resources to high-need students and using a multiple-measure accountability system to support local decision-making. Now is the time to make these adjustments to the Dashboard.”