The Palo Alto Unified School District was one of 29 California school districts recognized as academic “outperformers” by Standard & Poor’s School Evaluation Services July 19.
School districts identified as outperformers were those reporting significantly higher percentages of students who scored proficient or above on California reading and math tests than other school districts with similar levels of student poverty in the state over two school years. Academic achievement levels were compared with the percentage of economically disadvantaged students because the two indicators are often correlated.
“We congratulate the students, teachers, administrators and, indeed, the entire communities that support public education in these districts,” said William Cox, executive managing director of Standard & Poor’s School Evaluation Services. “The data we analyzed show that these 29 school districts had truly noteworthy performances. Each district deserves public recognition for its efforts.”
Standard & Poor’s developed the analysis used to identify outperforming school districts as a way to highlight outstanding academic performance, and to help educators in school districts with similar characteristics identify appropriate benchmarks to guide their own improvements.
Achieving proficiency in reading and math for all students by 2014 is one of the goals of the federal No Child Left Behind law. Linking school districts in need of improvement with outperforming school districts that have similar student demographics so that effective practices can be shared and replicated is one method that can help educators reach that target.
Standard & Poor’s conducted its analysis using data obtained from the state department of education Web site. The number of economically disadvantaged students in each school district is determined by the percentage of students receiving free or reduced price lunch. Academic performance was determined by using the aggregate percentages of students scoring proficient or better on the state’s reading and math tests.
