Show Students’ Access to A-to-G Courses

Challenge:   Community groups and some parents believed that the district was not providing equal learning opportunities to all students. How could we show the data in a way that was easily understood?

Solution:  Create visual expressions of courses we created in the four main core course areas.  Then show the rates at which students of each ethnic group made use of these courses.

What we did:   Our K12 Measures analytics team built a set of data visualizations for this client that framed their results within a context of 15 districts whose students most closely resembled their own. One of the 40+ visualizations looked at the percentage of all enrollments of white and Latino/Hispanic students in A-to-G level courses.

What they did:   The district leadership team, led by their Director of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment, analyzed the results. Then they prepared a public presentation and shared it at community meetings, board meetings, and at an annual meeting with realtors. This visualization ended up in their LCAP.

Outcome:   They discovered that overall, their students were taking A-to-G classes at rates higher than students in similar districts, and at rates higher than the state average. White students’ rates were a little higher than those of Latino/Hispanic students. But Latino/Hispanic students enrolled in A-to-G courses at rates in the middle of those of Latino/Hispanic students in other districts. While A-to-G enrollment rates weren’t equal, the added perspective offered by comparable districts helped balance the conversation. Visual evidence calmed the conversation.

Time elapsed: 20 minutes

Client: Morgan Hill USD