USC/School Performance Dashboard 2013. A Report from the Center on Educational Governance/University of Southern California

The USC School Performance Dashboard, now in its seventh year, draws on California school data from 2003-2012 to rate charter schools on academic and financial measures of performance. It also provides an accompanying interactive site at www.uscrossier.org/ceg/. Unlike other school databases, this one assigns values--high, medium, low--to the measures and goes beyond state test scores. Dashboard users like to know which schools are doing well, which are in the middle, and which struggle. Schools use the USC School Performance Dashboard to track their own performance over time and to compare themselves to other schools. Schools also submit our ratings in their renewal packages. A Bay Area charter school reported they used the data when describing their school to college admission officers: "Our school profile gives us bragging rights." Schools in the Top 10 use their position to help convince funders to invest in their schools. Teachers use the Dashboard as an employment directory--where might they like to work? Parents search it for charter schools in their community--what school is worthy of their child? The Dashboard's financial ratings warn charter authorizers to put out fires before they blaze. Finally, the many foundations that support California charter schools use the Dashboard to judge the return on their investment. The following are appended: (1) Definitions of Indicators; (2) Composition of Indicators; and (3) Primary Data Sources.