A traditional view of school performance in Los Angeles County suggests schools located in and near the downtown core of Los Angeles are failing to close the achievement gap.
This view rests on the premise that all schools should be judged similarly, regardless of their student population. The data strongly suggest otherwise.
The traditional view also fails to account for barriers to learning that many of LAC's students face outside of the classroom - in their neighborhoods and at home.
However, a closer look at the data reveals a handful of positive outliers in Los Angeles County - schools with high proficiency rates where high proficiency rates are not expected.
We used a three-step process to validate the positive outliers.
Step 1: Fit regression models to predict 2014-15 and 2015-16 ELA and Math CAASP proficiency rates for all public schools in California.
\(Proficiency = B_0 +B_1LowIncomePct. + B_2StudentsOfColorPct.+B_3ELLPct. + B_4Neighborhood +e_i\)
Step 2: For each year and subject, calculate the difference between each school's expected and actual proficiency rates.
\(Proficiency Against Expectations = Actual Proficiency - Expected Proficiency\)
Step 3: Use this new measure - each school's proficiency against expectations - to identify schools that consistently surpass expectations.
This approach changes the perception of school performance in Los Angeles County.
The figure below shows the expected and actual proficiency rates in Math in 2015-16 for 50 randomly selected schools in Los Angeles County. For the majority of these schools, the difference between their expected and actual proficiency rates was less than 5 points. A handful of schools, however, significantly outperformed expectations. These positive outliers should be viewed as some of the top schools in Los Angeles County.
Primary School Spotlight: Maywood Elementary
Middle School Spotlight: Luther Burbank Middle School
Secondary School Spotlight: James A. Garfield Senior High School
The schools that outperform expectations should be celebrated. But more importantly, they represent an opportunity to raise student achievement across Los Angeles County.