The California School Dashboard is getting a makeover ahead of its latest release.
Edsource reported this week that since its debut in spring 2017, the dashboard has received some criticism. Parent and school groups said they appreciated the extensive data but not the presentation, which they called confusing and hard to use.
The biggest change for the version 2.0 of the dashboard when it’s released in December: no more pies.
According to Edsource, the icons of full and partially eaten pies with the number of slices corresponding to one of five performance levels (3 slices for yellow, the middle performance level, 1 for red, the lowest score) will be replaced with a more simple gauge with an arrow pointing to a color.
“The movement from pies to using gauges is a real plus — far more intuitive,” Mary Perry, vice president for education at the California State PTA, told EdSource.
The dashboard shows how schools performed in key indicators, and how much progress they’ve made in these areas over time. It also offers detailed analysis for student subgroups that include low-income students, English learners, students with disabilities and other racial and ethnic groups.
Here are some other news articles from throughout the region for the week ending Sept. 7.
- There’s a lot that’s not widely known about vaping, which has seen a recent spike in use among young people. To better understand the phenomenon and the products themselves, two OCDE tobacco prevention coordinators provided answers to some basic questions.
- Students at Mendez Intermediate School in Santa Ana Unified spent part of a morning this week peppering an astronaut with questions about life in outer space. Astronaut Ricky Arnold, orbiting about 255 miles above California on the International Space Station, answered the gamut of questions through a live audio stream.
- The State Board of Education is set to adopt California’s first-ever computer science standards. The standards, while not mandatory, are expected to increase the number of computer science classes taught in California classrooms.
- With a new principal at the helm, Adams Elementary School in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District began their first day back to school on Tuesday.
- An organization representing the state’s charter schools has urged Gov. Jerry Brown to sign a bill that would ban for-profit charters, joining associations that represent teachers unions, school boards and school administrators.
This is the part where we encourage you to keep up with local education news stories by bookmarking the OCDE Newsroom, subscribing for emailed updates or following us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.