When it comes to the performance of some minority groups and high-needs students, LA Unified high schools showed more ability than their middle school counterparts in beating the odds on the California Office to Reform Education’s (CORE) new school accountability index.

While the performance of the district’s middle schools tended to break along familiar lines — with the top schools filled with high levels of white students in less impoverished areas — the CORE data for high schools reveal a different story in several key categories. (LA School Report will be publishing a CORE demographic analysis of elementary schools soon.)

For one, nearly all of the top schools were clustered in the downtown or South Los Angeles areas, while a majority of the top middle schools were located in more affluent areas of the Westside and the San Fernando Valley. Four of the top five schools were also magnets, demonstrating again why district leaders and the school board have been touting magnets as a way to increase enrollment at LA Unified. 

Ninety percent of the students at the district’s top five schools qualify for free and reduced price lunch, compared to 70 percent at the bottom five schools. The district average is 77 percent. At middle schools, the story was much different, with 37 percent of students at the top five schools qualifying, compared to 90 percent at the bottom schools.

The performance of Latinos, who make up 74 percent of the student body, also differed significantly, with enrollment at the top five schools totaling 70 percent, compared to a 34 percent enrollment at the top middle schools. White students, who made up 41 percent of the students at the top middle schools, comprised only 3 percent of the students at the top high schools. White students make up roughly 10 percent of the LA Unified student body.

• Read LA School Report’s analysis of CORE data for LAUSD schools.
• Why the CORE system was developed and why it is only temporary.
• Why charter schools aren’t included in the CORE data. 
• The top and bottom LAUSD elementary schools in the CORE data. 
· The top and bottom LAUSD middle schools in the CORE data. 

African American students, who make up roughly 8 percent of the student body, fared almost evenly at high schools, with 12 percent enrolled at the top schools versus 11 percent in the bottom schools. Asian students, who make up 6 percent of the student body, comprised 16 percent of the students at the top schools and zero percent at the bottom schools.

Other decades-old demographic challenges still remain at high schools, the CORE data show. All of the bottom schools were traditional high schools located in economically challenged neighborhoods clustered downtown or in South Los Angeles. They all had higher rates of English learners and special education students than the top schools, and only 1 percent white students.

The CORE index, which was unveiled in February, is the first school accountability system in California to move beyond just tests scores. The CORE formula that gives a school a score of 1 to 100 includes consideration for the standardized test performance of a school’s lowest performing racial subgroup, English learners, students with disabilities and those qualifying for a free and reduced price lunch. It also accounts for graduation rates, suspension rates and absenteeism.

TOP HIGH SCHOOLS

Harbor Teacher Prep Academy (2015-16)
1111 Figueroa Place
Wilmington, 90744-2311
CORE score: 100
Latino: 57%
African American: 11%
White: 4%
Asian: 22%
English learners: 0%
Students with disabilities: 1%
Free and reduced lunch: 72%

Math, Science and Tech Academy at Roosevelt High (2015-16)
456 S Mathews St.
Los Angeles, 90033
CORE score: 98
Latino: 98%
African American: 0%
White: 1%
Asian: 0%
English learners: 22%
Students with disabilities: 18%
Free and reduced lunch: 88%

Downtown Business High (2015-16)
1081 West Temple St.
Los Angeles, 90012-1573
CORE score: 97
Latino: 59%
African American: 6%
White: 2%
Asian: 31%
English learners: 5%
Students with disabilities: 4%
Free and reduced lunch: 76%

Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet (2015-16)
1200 Cornwell St.
Los Angeles, 90033
CORE score: 96
Latino: 80%
African American: 2%
White: 6%
Asian: 13%
English learners: 2%
Students with disabilities: 3%
Free and reduced lunch: 85%

King Drew Magnet High School of Science and Medicine (2015-16)
1601 E 120th St.
Los Angeles, 90059
CORE score: 96
Latino: 56%
African American: 42%
White: 1%
Asian: 13%
English learners: 3%
Students with disabilities: 2%
Free and reduced lunch: 88%

Total averages

Latino: 70%
African American: 12%
White: 2.8%
Asian: 16%
English learners: 6%
Students with disabilities: 10%
Free and reduced lunch: 82%

BOTTOM HIGH SCHOOLS

David Starr Jordan High School (2015-16)
2265 E 103rd St.
Los Angeles, 90002
CORE score: 22
Latino: 81%
African American: 17%
White: 1%
Asian: 0%
English learners: 34%
Students with disabilities: 21%
Free and reduced lunch: 56%

Early College Academy – LA Trade Tech College (2014-15)
400 W. Washington Blvd.
Los Angeles, 90015
CORE score: 34
Latino: 88%
African American: 7%
White: 5%
Asian: 0%
English learners: 25%
Students with disabilities: not available
Free and reduced lunch: 73%

Dr. Maya Angelou Community High (2015-16)
300 E 53rd St.
Los Angeles, 90011
CORE score: 37
Latino: 90%
African American: 9%
White: 0%
Asian: 0%
English learners: 29%
Students with disabilities: 11%
Free and reduced lunch: 66%

Agustus F. Hawkins High Critical Design and Gaming (2015-16)
300 E 53rd St.
Los Angeles, 90011
CORE score: 37
Latino: 85%
African American: 14%
White: 0%
Asian: 0%
English learners: 23%
Students with disabilities: 11%
Free and reduced lunch: 77%

Thomas Jefferson Senior High (2015-16)
1319 E 41st St.
Los Angeles, 90011
CORE score: 43
Latino: 88%
African American: 10%
White: 0%
Asian: 0%
English learners: 28%
Students with disabilities: 14%
Free and reduced lunch: 79%

Total averages
Latino: 90%
African American: 11%
White: 1%
Asian: 0%
English learners: 35%
Students with disabilities: 14%
Free and reduced lunch: 70%

* Free and reduced lunch data based on 2014-15 stats

Despite for the first time taking into consideration the performance of subgroups like English learners, students with disabilities and those from low-income families, there is still a wide gulf between the top and bottom LA Unified middle schools at LA Unified when it comes to their score on the California Office to Reform Education’s (CORE) new school accountability index. And it breaks down along familiar lines: where you live and the color of your skin. 

The CORE index, which was unveiled in February, is the first school accountability system in California to move beyond just tests scores. The CORE formula that gives a school a score of 1 to 100 includes consideration for the standardized test performance of a school’s lowest performing racial subgroup, English learners, students with disabilities and those qualifying for a free and reduced price lunch. It also accounts for graduation rates, suspension rates and absenteeism, all in an effort to give schools “the ability to take a more complex, comprehensive look at what is going on in their school,” John McDonald, a consultant to CORE, said when the system was unveiled.

• Read LA School Report’s analysis of CORE data for LAUSD schools.

• Why the CORE system was developed and why it is only temporary.

• Why charter schools aren’t included in the CORE data. 

• The top and bottom LAUSD elementary schools in the CORE data. 

A look at the top and bottom performing middle schools at LA Unified on the CORE index shows many of the same disparities found with systems that relied just on test scores: Schools with more white students and in high-income areas significantly outperformed schools with minorities and low incomes.

LA Unified middle schools in the top five were made up of 40.78 percent white students, even though whites total only 9.8 percent of the student body overall. Four of the schools were in white, affluent areas of the city in the Westside and the San Fernando Valley. (See above map.) The bottom five schools, however, were clustered near each other in South Los Angeles, with student bodies that had 75.4 percent Latino students, higher than the district average, which is 74 percent for the 2015-16 school year.

Asians, who make up 6 percent of the district, made up 0.04 percent of the bottom schools and 11.9 percent of the top schools. African Americans, who make up 8.4 percent of the district, made up 8.46 percent of the top schools and 17.96 percent of the bottom schools. 

There were also disparities between the top and bottom schools in the percentage of English leaners (7.18 percent to 28.5 percent), students with disabilities (8 percent to 16.25 percent) and those qualifying for free and reduced price lunch (37.02 percent to 89.52 percent).

Blogger Benjamin Feinberg of LA School Data, a teacher at LA Unified’s Luther Burbank Middle School who has also taught at charters, is one person who is dissatisfied with the CORE index. He applied an equalizing formula to the CORE data that he says “levels the playing field” when it comes to the challenging demographics some schools face. He wrote:

“I ran a regression and gave each school a score I am calling the FO’REAL Score. This model takes the demographics of a school (socioeconomic status, students with special needs population, English learner population and ethnicity makeup) and predicts a score based on those factors, as seen in the trend across all schools. I then compared their actual score to their predicted score by subtracting the two – a positive difference means they outperformed expectations and a negative score means they under-performed.

 

“I took it one step further and gave them a percentile rank – what percent of LAUSD schools did they do better than? For example, if you got a 65%, your school did better than 65% of all LAUSD schools.”

Applying the Fo’Real index to a number of the top and bottom middle schools can change how a school ranks, with some schools doing better and others doing worse based on the “predicted outcome” they should have achieved. Click here to test it out.

CORE and LA Unified have so far not released any analysis or number crunching they have done on the CORE numbers.

“The data in education lags. That’s what I find as an educator myself,” Feinberg told LA School Report when asked why he had analyzed the CORE data. “People don’t realize the data is out there until a person like myself gets the ball rolling and then people start looking at it. I was surprised (the district did not analyze the data).”

Of the top five middle schools, three (Alfred B. Nobel Charter, Hesby Oaks Leadership and Paul Revere Charter) are affiliated charters and one, Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies, is a magnet school. None of the bottom five schools is a magnet or affiliated charter.

TOP FIVE LAUSD MIDDLE SCHOOLS ON CORE INDEX

Alfred B. Nobel Charter (2014-15)
1963 East 103rd St., Los Angeles 90002
CORE score: 91
Latino: 38.5%
African American: 5.3%
White: 29.9%
Asian: 15.5%
English learners: 1.9%
Students with disabilities: not available
Free and reduced lunch: 36.1%

Hesby Oaks Leadership (2015-16)
15530 Hesby St., Encino 91436
CORE score: 90
Latino: 14%
African American: 3%
White: 71%
Asian: 6%
English learners: 5%
Students with disabilities: 8%
Free and reduced lunch: 36.1% (2014-15)

Robert Frost Middle (2015-16)
12314 Bradford Place, Granada Hills 91344
CORE score: 89
Latino: 64%
African American: 4%
White: 21%
Asian: 8%
English learners: 4%
Students with disabilities: 10%
Free and reduced lunch:  54.4%

Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies (2015-16)
5931 W 18th St., Los Angeles  90035
CORE score: 88
Latino: 31%
African American: 18%
White: 28%
Asian: 21%
English learners: 2%
Students with disabilities: 4%
Free and reduced lunch: 35%

Paul Revere Charter Middle (2015-16)
1450 Allenford Ave, Los Angeles 90049
CORE score: 87
Latino: 21%
African American: 12%
White: 54%
Asian: 9%
English learners: 23%
Students with disabilities: 10%
Free and reduced lunch: 23.5%

BOTTOM FIVE LAUSD MIDDLE SCHOOLS ON CORE INDEX

Edwin Markham Middle (2015-16)
1650 E 104th St., Los Angeles 90002
CORE score: 23
Latino: 78%
African American: 21%
White: 0%
Asian: 0%
English learners: 29%
Students with disabilities: 17%
Free and reduced lunch: 88.2%

Samuel Gompers Middle (2015-16)
234 E 112th St, Los Angeles 90061
CORE score: 27
Latino: 62%
African American: 36%
White: 0%
Asian: 0%
English learners: 25%
Students with disabilities: 19%
Free and reduced lunch: 87.5%

Horace Mann Junior High (2015-16)
7001 S St Andrews Pl, Los Angeles, CA 90047
CORE Score: 28
Latino: 50%
African American: 21%
White: 0%
Asian: 0%
English learners: 29%
Students with disabilities: 17%
Free and reduced lunch: 82.4%

Thomas A Edison Middle (2015-16)
6500 Hooper Ave., Los Angeles 90001
CORE score: 28
Latino: 96%
African American: 4%
White: 0%
Asian: 0%
English learners: 25%
Students with disabilities: 12%
Free and reduced lunch: 98.5%

George Washington Carver Middle (2014-15)
4410 McKinley Ave., Los Angeles 90011
CORE score: 32
Latino: 91%
African American: 7.8%
White: 0.3%
Asian: 0.2%
English learners: 28.9%
Students with disabilities: not available
Free and reduced lunch: 91%

Coming next: The top and bottom LAUSD high schools. 

Below are breakdowns of LA Unified’s elementary schools with the highest and lowest scores.

The LA Unified schools with the five lowest scores — actually seven schools, as a few tied — are all located in South Los Angeles or San Pedro with students that come primarily from low-income households. Low performance on the Smarter Balanced standardized tests combined with high levels of chronic absenteeism and suspension rates were the most common factors that resulted in the low CORE scores.

The average number of students in the bottom five who met or exceeded the standards in the English Language Arts portion of the Smarter Balanced tests was 12.42 percent, and average who did so in the math portion was 8.71 percent. This compares to a district average of 33 percent for English and 25 percent for math, while the students at the top five schools averaged 78.66 percent in English and 75.88 in math.

The gulf was also wide in performance on absenteeism and suspension rates, where the lowest schools had an average 18.85 percent chronic absenteeism and 2.12 percent average suspensions, versus a 4.11 percent absenteeism average and 0.03 percent average suspensions for the top schools.

There are also big differences in the demographics of the top and bottom schools, with the bottom schools having an average English learner rate of 29 percent, versus 8.5 percent for the top schools. The bottom schools also had an average of 11.28 percent of students in special education, versus 6.4 percent for the top schools.

The CORE system is based on 60 percent academics and 40 percent for socio-emotional/culture-climate factors like absenteeism and suspensions. Were CORE numbers to be calculated again next year, the scores would also include factors for academic growth and the results of student surveys. As the data is from one year, growth is not measured.

• Read LA School Report’s analysis of CORE data for LAUSD schools.

• Why the CORE system was developed and why it is only temporary.

• Why charter schools aren’t included in the CORE data. 

Two of the bottom five schools — Florence Griffith Joyner Elementary and 107th Street Elementary — are part of the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, a nonprofit that manages 17 of LA Unified’s historically challenged schools in collaboration with the district, the City of Los Angeles and philanthropic organizations.

Luz Maria Castellanos, senior manager of external relations and communications for the Partnership, pointed out that while some of the organization’s schools struggled with the CORE evaluation, they still experienced significant growth and improvement.

Although Joyner’s Smarter Balanced scores were low, Castellanos said they represented growth compared to the school’s last performance on the California Standards Test, which was discontinued in 2014. Joyner also scored poorly on absenteeism and suspension, but Castellanos said the 2015-16 school year has seen improvements in these areas.

In addition, “Joyner has lots of qualitative evidence of transformation in school culture (feedback from staff and parents, etc.), which we believe will fuel further academic growth in this year’s (Smarter Balanced tests),” Castellatios said in an email. She also said this is the first year 107th Street has joined the Partnership “so this year will be the baseline year for SBAC performance under the Partnership’s direction.”

For a closer look at a few of the schools with the lowest scores, check out the slideshow for each school featuring some of the key data from its CORE score.

Florence Griffith Joyner Elementary School
1963 East 103rd Street
Los Angeles, 90002
CORE score: 15
CORE rank: 714 out of 714

Demographics
Latino: 67%
African American: 29%
White: 4%
Asian: 0%
English learners: 37%
Students with disabilities: 11%
Free and reduced lunch: 95% (2014-15)

Hillcrest Drive Elementary 
4041 Hillcrest Drive
Los Angeles, 90008
CORE score: 16
CORE rank: 713 out of 714

Demographics
Latino: 49%
African American: 46%
White: 2%
Asian: 0%
English learners: 34%
Students with disabilities: 13%
Free and reduced lunch: 81.3% (2014-15)

107th Street Elementary
147 East 107th St.
Los Angeles, 90003
CORE score: 16
CORE rank: 713 (tied) out of 714

Demographics
Latino: 73%
African American: 25%
White: 1%
Asian: 0%
English learners: 44%
Students with disabilities: 8%
Free and reduced lunch: 88.5% (2014-15)

Century Park Elementary 
10935 South Spinning Avenue
Inglewood, 90303
CORE score: 17
CORE rank: 712 out of 714

Demographics
Latino: 33%
African American: 65%
White: 1%
Asian: 0%
English learners: 17%
Students with disabilities: 11%
Free and reduced lunch: 83.8% (2014-15)

Three elementary schools tied for the fifth-lowest CORE score, which was 19. The three schools are Annalee Avenue Elementary, Barton Hill Elementary and Cabrillo Avenue Elementary.

TOP PERFORMING ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS

Of the LA Unified elementary schools with with the top five scores on the CORE index — there were nine overall due to some ties — the only perfect score of 100 was Balboa Gifted/High Ability Magnet Elementary, which is a magnet school for gifted students who must already be high-achieving students in order to gain admission.

Of the other schools, which all accept students from the general population, there was much more variety in location than the lowest performing schools. Several are from the San Fernando Valley and several are from the Westside where a much lower portion of students are not living in poverty compared to the district average. None of the top schools are from South LA or San Pedro, where all of the lowest performing schools are.

For a closer look at the top three schools serving the general population, check out the slideshow for each school featuring some of the key data from its CORE score.

Solano Avenue Elementary 
615 Solano Avenue
Los Angeles, 90012
CORE score: 99
CORE rank: 2nd (tied) out of 714

Demographics
Latino: 46%
African American: 2%
White: 3%
Asian: 45%
English learners: 18%
Students with disabilities: 7%
Free and reduced lunch: 68.9% (2014-15)

Clover Avenue Elementary
11020 Clover Avenue
Los Angeles, 90034
CORE score: 99
CORE rank: 2nd (tied) out of 714

Demographics
Latino: 16%
African American: 5%
White: 29%
Asian: 43%
English learners: 14%
Students with disabilities: 4%
Free and reduced lunch: 19.94% (2014-15)

Porter Ranch Community School
12450 Mason Avenue
Porter Ranch, 91326
CORE score: 99
CORE rank: 2nd (tied) out of 714

Demographics
Latino: 10%
African American: 4%
White: 34%
Asian: 47%
English learners: 9%
Students with disabilities: 6%
Free and reduced lunch: 10.8% (2014-15)

Six elementary schools tied for the third-highest score, which was 97. They are Woodland Hills Elementary Charter For Enriched Studies, Wonderland Avenue Elementary, Welby Way Elementary Charter, Roscomare Road Elementary, Clifford Street Elementary and Canyon Charter Elementary.

Coming next: the top and bottom middle schools. 

The School Quality Improvement Index, which was developed by the California Office to Reform Education (CORE), is a significant jump away from the Academic Performance Index (API), which was discontinued after 2013 as the state transitioned to the Common Core-aligned Smarter Balanced tests, which debuted last year.

To understand CORE more, LA School Report recently calculated the scores of all 714 LA Unified schools entered into the system and ranked them. (Charter schools are not included in the CORE data, but there are other ways to measure their performance.) Sixty percent of a school’s CORE score is based on academic performance, which includes performance on the Smarter Balanced tests as well as the graduation rate for high schools and high school readiness for middle schools. Forty percent is based on “socio-emotional/culture-climate” factors like suspension and absenteeism.

Every category that CORE takes into account gets a value of 1 through 10 or 1 through 30, and these different values add up to an overall score of 1 through 100, with 100 being the top score. The average score of all 714 LA Unified schools entered into CORE was 60. But the CORE scores aren’t a direct calculation of a school’s overall score in the smaller categories; they employ a complicated formula that also considers how high-needs students performed.

These high-needs students are broken into four subgroups: the lowest performing racial/ethnic subgroup, English learners, students with disabilities and socio-economically disadvantaged students. Giving true weight to how these students perform, and rewarding schools that excel in educating them, is a far cry from API, in which a school with few high-needs students was ranked on an equal plane against those with many high-needs students.

• Read LA School Report’s analysis of CORE data for LAUSD schools.

• Read more on why the CORE system was developed and why it is only temporary.

The state of California is currently developing its own system that will also move beyond just test scores and likely take into consideration high-needs students and other data like suspension rates.

The new federal education law passed last year, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), calls on states to develop accountability systems with criteria like this in mind. California’s own Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) law, signed in 2013, requires school districts to provide extra funding for high-needs students.

California’s eventual accountability system may use a different formula and lack a simple numerical ranking system in favor of a more “dashboard” approach with multiple rankings, but it must be in alignment with ESSA and will end up using much of the same criteria that CORE looks at, making CORE the first view of what such a system might look like, or at least how this new data can impact a school’s performance.

When Gov. Jerry Brown was pitching the LCFF to lawmakers in 2013, he said, “Growing up in Compton or Richmond is not like it is to grow up in Los Gatos or Beverly Hills or Piedmont. It is controversial, but it is right, and it’s fair.”

Brown could have just as easily been talking about the CORE system, as for the first time it is an accountability system that takes into consideration the extra challenges high-needs students face while rewarding schools that are able to overcome these challenges. As a result, a school with the highest test scores is not necessarily the highest scoring school on the CORE index.

Former LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines, who stepped down in January, voiced his support for CORE’s approach, saying in December, “We have known for a long time that academic performance is one of many factors that make a great school, but CORE districts are now serving as a model for how we can actually measure these factors and look more holistically at school outcomes.”

Coming this week: A look at the top and bottom elementary, middle and high schools in LA Unified.

LA School Report

Independent charters are not included in the California Office of Reform Education (CORE)’s statistics, because CORE’s system was developed as part of a waiver its districts received from the federal government relieving them of some of the mandates of the No Child Left Behind law.

Charters were not allowed to join in the waiver, according to Elizabeth Robitaille, senior vice president of Achievement and Performance Management and School Development and Support for the California Charter Schools Association. But CCSA has given a thumbs up to the CORE system and hopes the state adopts a similar one.

Read LA School Report’s analysis of CORE data for LAUSD schools.

While the state is developing a system that will incorporate some of the new data CORE now includes, such as graduation rates and English learner performance, it has not committed to a single numerical ranking system like CORE provides and may instead use more of a “dashboard” approach that would give a school several different scores. CCSA prefers CORE’s numerical ranking system, which gives schools a score of 1 to 100.

“If each authorizer is free to interpret a broad series of multiple measures through its own lens, they would have enough discretion to make decisions that aren’t strongly tied to data,” CCSA said in a statement. “This could lead to authorizers finding reasons to justify renewing chronically failing schools or closing high performing charter schools. To keep politics and personalities to a minimum, California needs accessible, consistent, transparent statewide academic standards that define how well we expect our schools to perform.”

When it comes to available measuring sticks for independent charter schools, looking up their performance on the 2015 Smarter Balanced tests is one way, as 60 percent of a CORE score is based on the same tests. The score can then be compared to the charter average, district average or state average. This data is based solely on test scores, as was the old state accountability system, the Academic Performance Index (API). API was discontinued after 2013 as the state prepared the new Common Core-aligned Smarter Balanced tests, which began last year.

Read more about CORE’s system: 6 things to know about LAUSD’s new school accountability system

For a broader look at more charter school data there is CCSA’s Portrait of the Movement annual report, which has been on hold since 2014 as CCSA retools the report to incorporate the new Common Core standards and to include college readiness, Robitaille said.

Once the state releases the 2016 Smarter Balanced scores, “(CCSA) will produce academic accountability report cards for all schools in the state using this information and will post them on our snapshots website. And then we’ll issue our Portrait of the Movement, aggregating and assessing this data, along with a sortable spreadsheet of data for the public,” Robitaille said.

In the meantime, Robitaille pointed to the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) report on Los Angeles, “the most robust research report on LA that has been done recently,” she said.

“It demonstrates staggeringly positive results,” she said. “It shows charter schools in Los Angeles are generating learning equivalents to an extra four months in math and 2.5 months in English language arts. For low-income Latino students, for every two years that they are enrolled in a charter school, they are generating well over three years of learning in math and more than 2.5 years of learning in English language arts, compared to what is happening in district schools.”

These conclusions were made following an LA School Report analysis of LA Unified schools evaluated by the California Office to Reform Education (CORE). While the accountability system was unveiled in February, CORE and LA Unified did not provide any analysis, but now you can see the average score for the district, the top and bottom schools and compare schools of similar types or similar sizes. The chart shows whether the school is elementary, middle or high school; the school’s CORE score, starting with the lowest scores; the population of the school, and the link to the school’s complete CORE assessment.

Without this analysis, all that could previously be learned was a school’s individual score without any perspective. Is Van Nuys High‘s score of 76 good, bad or average? Turns out it is good, or at least above average, since the average score was 60.17. The system works on a scale of 1 to 100, with 100 being the best.

A total of 714 LA Unified schools were entered into the CORE system. Independent charter schools were not included, nor were special education centers, early education centers, adult education centers and continuation schools, which are small schools that serve struggling students.

(MORE: 6 things to know about LAUSD’s new school accountability system)

Two schools — Balboa Gifted/High Ability Magnet Elementary and  Harbor Teacher Preparation Academy — scored a perfect 100, and three schools — Solano Avenue Elementary, Clover Avenue Elementary and Porter Ranch Community — scored a 99. (Click on the school to see its CORE report.)

On the bottom end of the scale, LA Unified’s lowest scoring school was Florence Griffith Joyner Elementary, which scored a 15. The other poorest performers were One Hundred Seventh Street Elementary (16), Hillcrest Drive Elementary (16), Century Park Elementary (17), Annalee Avenue Elementary (19), Barton Hill Elementary (19) and Cabrillo Avenue Elementary (19).

CORE takes a multilayered approach to ranking and evaluating schools. The new system is not just based off standardized test scores, like the old Academic Performance Index (API), but also incorporates new data like graduation rates, attendance rates, suspension rates and the performance of certain subgroups like English learners. The API system was discontinued after 2013 while the state converted to the Common Core-aligned Smarter Balanced tests, which began statewide in 2015.

California is in the process of developing a new accountability system that will satisfy the requirements of the new federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Some experts believe the state will use some of the same data used in the CORE system but not provide a single number to rank schools, instead using a “dashboard” of multiple results that would include numerical rankings. Under ESSA, the state must identify the bottom five percent of its schools for intervention, but it is unclear how the state will do so without a numerical ranking system.

Eliminating numerical rankings has been criticized by some groups who believe such rankings are key to improving the state’s schools. The California Charter Schools Association, for one, is not in favor the dashboard approach.

“CORE’s system of measuring multiple aspects of a school’s performance and student outcomes, which are then tabulated to create a single index, is thoughtful and comprehensive,” CCSA said in statement to LA School Report. “Unfortunately the state is moving toward a different system — a complex dashboard that allows a whole series of standards to be interpreted at the local level. This would create a climate of unequal treatment and uncertainty, instead of the clear, accessible, statewide standards that California public schools need. Families need these standards to understand how the schools in their communities are performing.

“To keep politics and personalities to a minimum, California needs accessible, consistent, transparent statewide academic standards that define how well we expect our schools to perform.”

The CORE index was developed by LA Unified and five other districts as part of a deal with the federal government. The districts banded together for the purpose of getting a much-desired waiver in 2013 from the stringent mandates of the No Child Left Behind law, and part of the waiver required them to develop a comprehensive way of evaluating and ranking schools. CORE became the first non-state to get a waiver.

As to why no district-wide analysis is being released, LA Unified provided the following statement: “Like CORE itself, LA Unified is not analyzing final results of the 2015 School Quality Improvement Index as this was the baseline year and we are still learning about the metrics and their implications. There is no district average, but individual schools may use their results to guide planning for next year. Because the index aligns with the district’s goals and is intended to support action, we believe this is an appropriate use of the numbers. In addition, with the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, we do not anticipate having scores next year.”

Opening up a school’s report reveals the inner workings of how the score was compiled. The overall score is based on a formula where 60 percent is for academic performance and 40 percent is for socio-emotional/culture climate factors. Individual categories are given a score of 1 through 10, which are then added up for an overall 1 through 100 score.

For Florence Griffith Joyner, the poor score was the result of criteria like high absenteeism over the 2013-14 and 2014-15 school years, which was 21 percent and 25 percent, respectively. CORE ranks these percentages as a 1 out of 10. The school’s suspension rate of 2.33 percent and 4.67 percent over the two years earned it a 3 out of 10.

For performance on the 2015 Smarter Balanced standardized test scores, only 11 percent of Florence Griffith Joyner’s students met or exceeded English Language arts standards, and only 12 percent met or exceeded the math standards. These results were far below the district-wide average of 33 percent for English and 25 percent for math.

For Harbor Teacher Prep Academy, the perfect score was the result of factors like a 1 percent chronic absenteeism rate over the two years and a zero percent suspension rate. On the Smarter Balanced test scores, 83 percent of students met or exceeded the English standards and 81 percent met or exceeded the math standards.

One limitation to CORE’s data is that it did not separate out span schools, which include students from more than just elementary school, middle school or high school. A span school may have students from grades 6-12, but CORE only list schools as either an elementary school, middle school or high school. So a span school that includes middle school students and high school students is listed twice on the CORE list, but with the same scores and same student population, so the scores from the two age groups only count as one score. This would skew the overall average for all schools, as well as impact the individual score for a school listed twice.

Other noteworthy facts about the list include:

• The five lowest performing high schools are David Starr Jordan Senior High (22),  Early College Academy-LA Trade Tech College (23), Leadership in Entertainment and Media Arts (LEMA) (34), Dr. Maya Angelou Community High (37) and Augustus F. Hawkins High A Critical Design and Gaming (37).
• After Harbor Teacher Prep, the four top performing high schools are all magnet schools: Math, Science, & Technology Magnet Academy at Roosevelt High (98), Downtown Business High (97), Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet High (96) and King/Drew Medical Magnet High (96).
• After Balboa, Solano, Clover and Porter Ranch, the fifth-best ranking for elementary schools is a five-way tie with Wonderland Avenue Elementary (97), Welby Way Elementary Charter (97), Roscomare Road Elementary (97), Clifford Street Elementary (97) and Canyon Charter Elementary (97).
• The bottom five middle schools are Edwin Markham Middle (23), Loren Miller Elementary (26), Samuel Gompers Middle (27), Horace Mann Junior High (28) and  Thomas A. Edison Middle School (28).
• The top five middle schools are Alfred B. Nobel Charter Middle (91), Hesby Oaks Leadership Charter (90), Robert Frost Middle (89), Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies (88) and Paul Revere Charter Middle (87).