Los Angeles County posseses a staggering amount of prosperity and poverty. Within the United States, its inequality has almost no equal.

Naturally these inequalities have a profound impact on educational outcomes.

And contribute to the perception that many of the county's schools are failing their students - particularly those in the urban core.

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.

A three-step process was to validate the positive outliers and create a view of school performance that accounts for local context.

Step 1: Using key indicators of student performance and a set of neighborhood factors, build a statistical model that predicts 2014-15 and 2015-16 CAASPP proficiency rates for all traditional public and charter schools in California.
\(Proficiency = B_0 +B_1LowIncomePct. + B_2StudentsOfColorPct.+B_3ELLPct. + B_4Neighborhood #####**Step 2:** For each year and subject, calculate the difference between each school's expected and actual proficiency rates. ######\)Proficiency Against Expectations = Actual Proficiency - Expected Proficiency$
Step 3: Use this new measure - each school's proficiency against expectations - to identify schools that consistently act as positive outliers.

Primary School Spotlight: Maywood Elementary

Middle School Spotlight: Luther Burbank Middle School

Secondary School Spotlight: James A. Garfield Senior High School