Methodology
How we score schools
The Scope Score places a school among California public and charter schools at the same level, using state test results, attendance and suspension records.
California Department of Education, test years 2025–26 · Reviewed October 1, 2026 · Corrections and changes
75
The typical California schoolThe scale
What do the numbers from 50 to 100 mean?
75 is the typical California school. 100 is the best result in the state. A higher score means better results on the measures in the score.
50
The lowest score we show75
The typical California school100
The best result in the state- Needs Support70 and belowBelow the 25th percentile
- Developing71 to 7425th to 49th percentile
- Solid75 to 8050th to 74th percentile
- Strong81 and up75th percentile and up
The scores in each band at each level
| Band | Elementary schools, spring 2026 | Middle schools, spring 2026 | High schools, spring 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strong | 81 and up | 80 and up | 81 and up |
| Solid | 75 to 80 | 75 to 79 | 75 to 80 |
| Developing | 71 to 74 | 71 to 74 | 70 to 74 |
| Needs Support | 70 and below | 70 and below | 69 and below |
Each level has its own line, so a score at one level can’t be compared with a score at another level.
How a result becomes a score
What it shows. Each scored school gets a Scope Score from 50 to 100. Each school is compared only with California schools at its level. The score comes with a percentile. The 90th percentile means the school scored higher than 90 in 100 of them. The band word comes from the percentile.
We work out one combined result for each school from those measures. Then we draw one straight line for each level and each year. The school in the middle of the ranked list gets 75. The school with the best result gets 100. Every other school sits on that line, rounded to a whole number. No school shows a score under 50.
What it can’t see: teaching, culture, programs or fit. Who attends, group gaps and spending are shown, never counted. More on its limits
- The score is never a score out of 100, and it is not a percentage.
- Every score is printed with its band and its percentile.
- Lists are put in order by the result before rounding. Two schools can show the same score and still be in order.
- Elementary, middle and high schools each have their own line. A score at one level can’t be compared with a score at another level.
- The best result belongs to one school each year, so the top of the scale can move a little from year to year. Compare scores within one year.
- Continuation and alternative schools are ranked only against schools of their own type. They show a band and a percentile, and no Scope Score.
- Private schools show no score. Schools where a court or a placement team assigns students show their results and no score.
The weights
What goes into the Scope Score?
Every scored school gets one Scope Score, built from weighted measures. The weights differ by level because the data each level has differs.
Elementary and middle schools grades 3–8
- Advanced 42%
- Proficient or Advanced 23%
- Cohort growth 20%
- Chronic absence 5%
- Suspensions 5%
- English learners 5%
High schools grade 11
- Advanced 22%
- Proficient or Advanced 18%
- Graduation 25%
- College or career readiness 20%
- Chronic absence 5%
- Suspensions 5%
- English learners 5%
California tests grades 3–8 and grade 11. High schools have no cohort growth, so their score uses graduation and college readiness instead.
We score 8,761 of the 9,443 California public and charter schools families can choose between. Juvenile court, community and special-education schools publish their numbers without a score. Which schools are compared with which.
When a school has no data for a measure (for example, it has no English learners), that weight is shared among the other measures. Demographics, meal eligibility, spending and student-teacher ratios are shown on every profile and are never part of the score. Why demographics stay out.
Each measure’s weight in the Scope Score
Every percentage below is a weight in the score, not a share of students.
| Measure | Weight, grades 3–8 | Weight, grade 11 |
|---|---|---|
| Share of students who scored Advanced | 42% | 22% |
| Share of students who scored Proficient or Advanced | 23% | 18% |
| The same school’s classes two years apart (cohort growth) | 20% | — |
| Share of students who graduate | — | 25% |
| Share of students ready for college or a career | — | 20% |
| Share of students chronically absent | 5% | 5% |
| Share of students suspended | 5% | 5% |
| Share of English learners reaching the top level of the state’s English test | 5% | 5% |
From spring 2026, the state calls its top two levels “Proficient or Advanced” (formerly “Met or Exceeded”).
Bands
What do the bands mean?
A band is a plain-word reading of a school’s percentile among California schools at its level. One rule sets it on every page.
- Strong75th percentile and upScored higher than at least 75 in 100 California schools at its level
- Solid50th to 74th percentileScored higher than 50 to 74 in 100 California schools at its level
- Developing25th to 49th percentileScored higher than 25 to 49 in 100 California schools at its level
- Needs SupportBelow the 25th percentileScored higher than fewer than 25 in 100 California schools at its level
A school ranked within its own type takes its band from its percentile among schools of that type. Juvenile court, community and special-education schools show no band.
A band describes a school, never a student’s test result. A child’s 2025–26 score report uses a separate scale: the state’s test levels Advanced, Proficient, the Developing level (formerly Nearly met) and Minimal.
Rankings
How do rankings and percentiles work?
- Schools are ranked within their own level. Levels are never mixed.
- A percentile is the share of same-level schools that score below this one. The highest shown is the 99th; we never print the 100th.
- Schools without enough data for a Scope Score aren’t ranked.
- Some schools aren’t ranked because of how students arrive there. See school types.
The statewide rankings hold 5,726 elementary, 2,529 middle and 1,491 high schools. A campus that teaches two levels is ranked at both. Continuation and alternative schools are ranked only against schools of their own type, so they aren’t in these counts.
School types
Which schools are compared with which?
A Scope Score ranks schools a family can choose between. Where a court, an expulsion or a placement assigns students, we publish the results and give no score.
Scored and ranked statewide
8,894
Comprehensive (regular public and charter schools)
Can get a score, a band, patterns and a statewide rank when its current results meet the scoring rules.
Ranked within its type
419
Continuation
When it has a score, it is ranked only among schools of this type.
Ranked within its type
130
Alternative
When it has a score, it is ranked only among schools of this type.
No score
261
Court and community
No score, band, pattern or rank. Every number behind it is still published.
No score
108
Special education
No score, band, pattern or rank. Every number behind it is still published.
Open California public and charter schools by school type, from our roster. The type comes from the state’s school-type code and its Dashboard Alternative School Status (DASS) flag.
The line is how students enroll. It is not demographics or results. A high-poverty neighborhood school that families choose stays in the statewide comparison.
A school’s type is never set from how the school scores. The type says which schools it is compared with. It isn’t a judgment about the school.
Why magnets coded as alternative still rank statewide, and why some schools have no score
The state’s school-of-choice code groups placement programs with selective magnets and gifted academies. We use the state’s DASS flag instead, so a magnet or gifted academy coded alternative but not DASS-flagged is compared statewide when its results support a score.
We score 8,761 of the 9,443 California public and charter schools families can choose between. A further 682 choosable schools have no score for 2025–26. They include grade configurations the formula can’t score, missing current data, and high schools whose CDE-reported overall College/Career Indicator cohort is below SchoolScope’s 30-student minimum for this score. CDE may still report a Prepared rate for those schools.
The 9,443 leaves out juvenile court, community and special-education schools, because their students are placed there rather than choosing them. It comes from our own roster, so it won’t match CDE’s statewide total (9,947 public schools for 2025–26), which the state counts its own way; adding the placement schools back doesn’t close that difference.
The arithmetic
How are the measures combined?
Each measure is compared with the California average for schools at the same level. The comparisons are combined with the weights, and the result is placed on the scale.
One real elementary school. It sits at the middle of California’s ranked list, on spring 2026 tests.
- AdvancedStudents who scored Advanced10%Worse than the state average.42% of the score
- Proficient or AdvancedStudents who scored Proficient or Advanced25%Worse than the state average.23% of the score
- Cohort growthIts 5th graders against its 3rd graders two years earlier, in test-scale points (partly different children)+94 pointsBetter than the state average.20% of the score
- Chronic absenceStudents who missed 10% or more of school days15 in 100Better than the state average.5% of the score
- SuspensionsStudents suspended at least once2.1%Worse than the state average.5% of the score
- English learnersEnglish learners reaching the top level of the state’s English test11%Worse than the state average.5% of the score
Combined with the weights
75
Solid · 50th percentile
Two of its measures are better than the state average and four are worse. Together they place it at the middle of the list.
The size of the difference counts. A school at 70% Advanced gets more credit than a school at 55%, even when both are above the state average.
The combined result is one number for each school. How it becomes the score you see.
How this differs from a sorted list, and the order of the steps
Each level is worked out on its own, because every measure is compared inside its own level. A score at one level can’t be compared with a score at another level. Within a level the scale is even: a 10-point difference near the top means the same as a 10-point difference in the middle.
Some systems rank schools by position and then press the result into a 1–10 scale. That can make the 1st and the 200th school look far apart when their results are nearly the same. Our scoring keeps the real distance between schools.
The steps run in this order: cohort growth, small-school smoothing, the weighted result, then the scale.
Measures
What does each measure mean?
Each row gives a measure’s weight in the score. Open a measure to see what it counts and how we use it.
AdvancedThe share of students above the standard42%of the score, grades 3–822%of the score, grade 11
Most rating sites report one number: students at Proficient or Advanced. That hides a real difference. Two schools can both report 70%: one with 50% Advanced and 20% Proficient, the other with 10% Advanced and 60% Proficient.
The Advanced share carries the highest academic weight because it counts the students who go beyond the standard. Why the same share Proficient or Advanced can mean two different schools →
California reports English (reading and writing) and math separately, one grade at a time, and never publishes the two combined. The single Advanced figure on a profile is our own unweighted average of every grade-and-subject figure the state published for that school at that level: grades 3–5 for elementary, 6–8 for middle and 11 for high school, each in both subjects. Expect it to differ from any single cell on the state’s own site.
Proficient or AdvancedThe share of students at or above the standard23%of the score, grades 3–818%of the score, grade 11
This is baseline proficiency: the share of students who clear the bar. It keeps a school that reliably gets students to grade level from being overlooked, even if few go past it.
Cohort growth, and the same-year grade gapThe same school’s classes measured two years apart20%of the score, grades 3–8Not usedfor grade 11
Two different numbers get called growth in California school data, and they disagree about a school’s direction for more than half of schools.
Cohort growth is what the Scope Score weights. We compare the same school’s classes across years: 2024’s 3rd graders measured again as 2026’s 5th graders, and 2024’s 6th graders measured again as 2026’s 8th graders for middle schools. It uses Smarter Balanced scale scores, which are built for comparison across grades and years. It is partly different children, since students move in and out. 80.9% of elementary schools with a Scope Score (4,640 of 5,736, including 10 ranked only within their own type) and 60.6% of middle schools with one (1,552 of 2,563, including 34 ranked only within their own type) carry this figure. A school without one gets no growth figure, never a substitute.
The grade gap is shown, never scored. It compares one year’s 5th graders with the same year’s 3rd graders, in proficiency percentage points. Those are different children, and the proficiency bar rises with each grade, so a school can move every class forward and still post a negative gap. Where it appears, it is labeled and never colored by its sign.
In the current elementary data, every elementary cohort gained ground: about 76 scale-score points on average between grade 3 and grade 5, with no school posting a negative cohort figure. Positive raw change is normal as children get older, so the score compares it with other schools at the same level. The resulting 0–100 index is centred on 50 before clipping; it is a standardized position, not a percentile, and it doesn’t estimate what the school caused.
Below the tested-student floor we make no growth claim in either direction. High schools have no growth measure, because California tests only grade 11; that weight goes to the measures high schools do have.
Chronic absenteeismStudents who missed 10% or more of school days5%of the score, grades 3–85%of the score, grade 11
The share of students missing at least 10% of the days they were enrolled to attend. Excused absences, including illness, count too. It isn’t a measure of family commitment, and the rate alone doesn’t show how safe, welcoming or effective a school is.
The school-wide rate can reflect grade mix, health, transportation, housing and school practices. We use the all-student rate, not a grade-adjusted one. Lower recorded absence raises the score, at a base weight of 5% at every level. See the CDE indicator definition and CDE’s distinction between excused absence and truancy.
Suspension rateStudents suspended at least once5%of the score, grades 3–85%of the score, grade 11
The share of students suspended at least once during the year. Lower is better in the score. High rates often go with a discipline-heavy approach, and suspensions fall unevenly on underserved students.
Graduation rateStudents who graduate in four yearsNot usedfor grades 3–825%of the score, grade 11
The four-year Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate (ACGR) from the California Department of Education. It carries 25% of the high school Scope Score, the largest single weight.
Ready for college or career (CCI)Graduates who met a state readiness measureNot usedfor grades 3–820%of the score, grade 11
California’s College/Career Indicator counts graduates who met a readiness measure: the UC/CSU course list, AP exams or courses, a career technical pathway or other state criteria. CDE’s 2026 indicator also counts Cambridge International courses and exams, International Baccalaureate (IB) courses as well as exams, an ASVAB score for students in Leadership/Military Science, and work-based learning or the State Seal of Civic Engagement paired with another measure, so its 2026 Prepared rate uses broader criteria than the 2025 published rate. It carries 20% of the high school Scope Score.
English learners reaching the top level of the state’s English testThe share of English learners at ELPAC Level 45%of the score, grades 3–85%of the score, grade 11
ELPAC is the English Language Proficiency Assessments for California. It tests listening, speaking, reading and writing for students identified as English learners. We use the share of a school’s English learners who reach Level 4, Well Developed, the top level. It carries 5% of the Scope Score at every level; a school with no English learners has the weight shared out across the other measures.
Profiles also show a different state figure, the English Learner Progress Indicator: the share of English learners who moved up at least one level or held the top level. It isn’t in the score.
Fairness
How do we keep comparisons fair?
3
corrections run before any ranking. Some differences in raw numbers come from the test or from a school’s size, not from the school.
- Scale-score growthGrowth measured on scores built for cross-grade comparison
How scale-score growth works
Comparing 3rd- and 5th-grade pass rates mixes up “did students learn more?” with “is the 5th-grade test harder?” We measure growth with Smarter Balanced scale scores, which the testing vendor built for exactly this comparison.
Technical detail. Scored growth =
mean(mean_scale_score, current-year high grade) − mean(mean_scale_score, prior-year low grade). The scale scores are IRT-calibrated and vertically equated across grades. Growth enters the composite as the school’s position among its level, never as raw scale points. Separately we store the same-year grade gap in percentage points; it compares different students and doesn’t enter the score. - Small-school stabilityFewer tested students, more pull toward the average
How small-school stability works
A school with a dozen students tested can swing from year to year for reasons that have nothing to do with the school. Schools with fewer tested students have their measures pulled slightly toward the statewide average; large schools barely move.
Technical detail. Bayesian shrinkage:
smoothed = (n / (n + k)) * raw + (1 − n / (n + k)) * statewide_mean. Each measure has its ownk, from how much sampling noise it carries (elementary / middle / high): Advanced, k = 6 / 6 / 6.1; Proficient or Advanced, k = 5.4 / 5.4 / 4.4; chronic absence, suspension and ELPAC, k = 30 / 30 / 30; cohort growth, k = 89 elementary and 78 middle, with n the smaller of the cohort’s two grade counts. For the other measures n is the school’s number of test results: with k = 30, a school with 15 results is pulled 67% toward the mean, 100 results 23% and 300 results 9%. - Cohort trackingThe same school’s classes, two years apart
How cohort tracking works
Where we have the earlier year, we follow the same school’s grade cohort across years: 2024’s 3rd graders measured again as 2026’s 5th graders. That compares mostly, not exactly, the same children. It shows which way a school’s scores moved as a cohort grew up, not what the school caused.
A school whose cohort is too small to publish (12.6% of elementary and 11.0% of middle schools) keeps growth in its score but shows no figure. A school with no usable two-year cohort (6.5% of elementary and 28.4% of middle schools) gets no growth figure, and the growth weight is shared out across the other five measures.
Tested and left out
What did we test and leave out?
1
correction was tested and is not used. Turning it on made the score less steady from year to year.
Grade-test difficulty
Each score already covers one grade band, so nearly every school is compared on the same grades.
Why the grade-test correction was left out
Fifth-grade tests are harder than third-grade tests, so averaging raw proficiency across grades could make a school teaching harder grades look worse. Each Scope Score already covers one grade band: an elementary score uses grades 3–5 only, and a K–8 school’s grades 6–8 go to its separate middle-school score. Nearly every elementary school is compared on the same set of grade-subject cells, so a difficulty difference everyone shares cancels out.
Technical detail. Measured on spring 2025 results: the grade-span component of a school’s Advanced rate has a standard deviation of 0.0142 percentage points, against a between-school SD of 15.54 points in the same measure. Switching the correction on lowered the year-over-year reliability of the Advanced share from 0.9733 to 0.9622 (elementary). If another state’s data shows real grade-span variation, the right construction is to centre within cell: value − cellMean + grandMean.
The state’s growth measure
Why isn’t California’s own growth measure in the score?
California publishes its own growth measure. We show it on every profile that has one. It isn’t in the Scope Score.
97.0%
of the public and charter schools that tested grades 4–8 have a growth figure from the state for spring 2025 (7,520 of 7,750).
The state’s measure follows the same students in grades 4–8, in English and math. It reports how many points they scored above or below what the state expected from their earlier scores.
Most of the 230 schools without a figure tested very few students.
It sits beside our cohort comparison on the profile, so you can read both.
Why we show it without scoring it
When we tested it, it tracked family income about three times more closely than our cohort growth (correlation with the share of low-income students, school averages across both subjects, schools with at least 40 tested students: −0.35 against our −0.13). Cohort growth is the part of our score least tied to who enrolls, which is most of why we weight it. California has also published only one year of its measure, so nobody can yet say how much a school’s figure moves from year to year, and at elementary it covers grades 4 and 5 only.
The two measures place roughly one school in five in a different band. Where they disagree, ask the school about it. At schools where many students move in and out, the state’s measure is the better one: our cohort comparison assumes a continuity that isn’t there.
Their figure is not a percentage. “+4” means four scale-score points better than the state expected for those students, and about half of California schools land between −6 and +9.
Of the 230 schools without a figure, 119 tested fewer than 11 students in those grades, CDE’s stated minimum, and 188 tested fewer than 30, against a median of 192 at schools that have a figure. For the rest, CDE gives no reason we can see.
Patterns
What are the patterns on a profile?
A profile can show zero, one or several patterns. Each describes the reported results; none is an award, a personality or a prediction for one child.
| Pattern | What the results must show | A question to ask |
|---|---|---|
| High ceiling A high share of results in the top level | Reported share in the top level, averaged over grades and subjects ≥ 50% Results do not establish the availability of advanced classes or how well the school serves every student. | Who gets access to advanced work, and what support is available to students still working toward the standard? |
| Broad base Most students scored in the top two levels overall | Reported share in the top two levels, averaged over grades and subjects ≥ 65% This is an overall average. English, math, grades and student groups can differ. | Do those results extend across subjects and student groups? |
| Grade-to-grade gains Results rose more from grade 3 to grade 5 two years later (grade 6 to grade 8 at a middle school) than at the average school at its level | Cohort-change index ≥ 63; cohort endpoints available; cohort tested count ≥ 40 A different cohort can produce a different result. This does not establish individual progress or a school-caused effect. | Does the pattern hold for other cohorts, and how does the school track each child’s progress? |
| Across the board High results in English and math, with measured progress | English and math each ≥65% in the top two levels; every included grade–subject cell ≥50% and n≥40. Both official CDE growth subjects Average or above, n≥40. Only campuses confined to grades 3–5 or 6–8 within the tested grade range; no mixed-stage or high-school assignment. Academic breadth is not a claim about every student group, classroom, program or part of school life. | Do the broad strengths extend to your child’s grade and learning needs? |
| On the rise English and math results rising across three years | Three consecutive years, complete same-grade English and math cells, n≥40 each. Both subjects gain >1 point in each interval and ≥5 points overall, with higher ending mean scale scores. Each grade–subject tested-count maximum is ≤1.25× its minimum across the window. Different students take the tests each year. Recent gains do not promise another year of improvement. | What has changed, and is the improvement reaching students with different starting points? |
They apply only to regular public and charter schools in California with a current Scope Score, and the cutoffs are editorial choices, not tests of statistical significance.
How to read a pattern
Cohort findings require both aggregate endpoints and at least 40 tested students in the smaller endpoint. School-by-grade records do not follow individual children; transfers and changing cohort composition can affect the comparison. The index is not a percentile, a causal effect, or California’s official growth measure.
Use the date and the level. Attainment patterns describe the reporting year on the profile: grades 3–5 for elementary, 6–8 for middle and grade 11 for high school. “Grade-to-grade gains” compares the earlier lower-grade result with the later upper-grade result at the same school. A pattern can change when a new cohort is reported.
Read across subjects. “High ceiling” and “Broad base” use the available grade-subject rates with equal weight. They don’t require every subject or grade to clear the cutoff, so a weaker subject can sit beside the pattern. A school just below a cutoff is close to a school just above it.
Separate progress from a trend. “Grade-to-grade gains” compares cohorts moving through grades; “On the rise” compares the same grades across three reporting years. Neither follows the same children, and neither shows what the school caused.
“Across the board” is about academics. It needs complete evidence in English, math and the state’s growth measure, on a campus confined to one stage. It isn’t a claim about every student group or every part of school life. Compact displays show it in place of “Broad base”; the full profile keeps both.
Missing information never counts as positive evidence. No pattern can mean no cutoff was met, evidence was unavailable, or the rules don’t apply. We tested missing years and grades, small samples, divergent subjects, rounding margins, tested-count changes and grade-scope mismatches. These rules describe the reported record; they don’t establish school effectiveness. They apply to California only.
How are the sentences on a profile written?
Every sentence on a profile comes from a fixed set of templates applied by fixed rules, so the same data always produces the same sentence.
- Strengths and watch-outs. We compute the school’s standing on each scored measure and on student-group results against the state. Standings well above typical become candidate strengths; standings well behind become candidate watch-outs.
- A school is never introduced by a student group. Group results stay prominent on the profile, but the opening describes what the school does for all its students.
- Strength and watch-out together. The opening pairs the strongest eligible finding with the most important watch-out. A school with no watch-out gets a plain summary.
- Needs Support schools open with a true positive where the data shows one, and a question to ask the school.
- Direction, never cause. Sentences state what the data shows (“proficiency falls from grade 3 to grade 5”), never why.
- A question to ask. Each watch-out carries a hedge and a concrete question for the school.
- Small groups are left out, following the state’s own privacy rules. When data is missing, the sentence says so.
If you think a sentence misreads your school, report it. A person reads every report, and a fix goes into the rule, not just the page.
Limits
What can’t the score tell you?
- The score measures only part of a school. We can’t measure teacher quality, school culture or arts programs. No public dataset holds them.
- The weights are our judgment. The research behind each measure says the measure matters. It does not say exactly how much. See what the research says.
- High schools have no growth measure. California tests only grade 11, so the high school score uses graduation and college readiness instead.
- Cohort growth follows a school’s classes, not each student. Children move in and out. Nearly every school gains raw scale points as children get older, so growth means something only next to other schools at the same level. No measure of this kind fully separates what a school does from which students it enrolls.
- School paths are estimated. They come from federal boundary data and may not show transfers, magnet programs or recent boundary changes.
- Small schools are less certain. Smoothing makes the changes from year to year smaller. It can’t remove them.
- We don’t adjust for demographics or income. Figures such as meal eligibility are shown beside the score.
- Two measures still partly depend on which students enroll. Chronic absenteeism and the share of English learners at the top ELPAC level both do. We don’t compare schools only with schools that serve similar communities. School types group schools by how students enroll, not by community.
What do we show but not score?Teacher experience, AP and career pathways, physical fitness
Some data follows school funding and neighborhood income closely. Scoring it would mark schools down for being in lower-income areas. We show it on profiles and leave it out of the score.
Teacher experience. Average years of teaching and the share of first- and second-year teachers (CDE staff data). Scoring it would mark down hard-to-staff schools serving the students who need the most support.
AP and career pathways. For high schools, the students qualifying through AP exams or courses and career technical pathways, from the College/Career Indicator. Wealthier schools have higher participation.
Physical fitness. California tests fitness in grades 5, 7 and 9, but CDE stopped publishing school-level research files after spring 2019, so we don’t show it.
Sources
Where does the data come from?
Only public data sources. 6 feed the score, and 6 more are shown beside it on profiles.
6
sources feed the score6
more are shown on profilesThe score uses California Department of Education data, the same data the state uses for its own school accountability system, and federal NCES data. Profiles add the university, testing and civil-rights sources listed on the About page. Our current test years are 2025–26.
Families and staff can answer a few questions on some profiles. Staff answers appear once at least 5 have answered; family answers show only as a count. Los Angeles Unified profiles also show the district’s own School Experience Survey. None of it is in the score.
The 12 sources behind the score and beside it
- CAASPP Smarter Balanced Assessments (English and math) (opens in a new tab)Core Scope Score input. Four achievement levels for grades 3–8 and 11, from spring 2026 named Advanced, Proficient, the Developing level (formerly Nearly met) and Minimal. · scored
- Chronic Absenteeism Rates (opens in a new tab)School climate signal and Scope Score component. Percentage of students missing 10%+ of school days. · scored
- Suspension Rates (opens in a new tab)School climate signal and Scope Score component. In-school and out-of-school suspension rates. · scored
- ACGR Graduation Rates (opens in a new tab)Four-year adjusted cohort graduation rates for high schools. · scored
- CCI College/Career Indicator (opens in a new tab)College and career readiness metrics used in high school Scope Scores. · scored
- ELPAC English Learner Proficiency (opens in a new tab)English Language Proficiency assessment results for English Learner students. · scored
- NCES Common Core of Data (CCD) (opens in a new tab)School directory, enrollment counts, teacher counts, student demographics for every public school in the U.S. · shown only
- NCES Private School Survey (PSS) (opens in a new tab)Private school profiles including enrollment, student-teacher ratio, religious affiliation, and grades offered. Published biennially. · shown only
- NCES F-33 Local Education Agency Finance Survey (opens in a new tab)District-level per-pupil expenditure, revenue sources, and financial data. · shown only
- American Community Survey (ACS) 5-Year Estimates (opens in a new tab)Community context data including median household income, home values, and educational attainment for the areas surrounding schools. · shown only
- Census Day Enrollment (opens in a new tab)Annual enrollment counts and demographic breakdown by race/ethnicity and grade. · shown only
- CDE ESSA School-Level Per-Pupil Expenditure (opens in a new tab)Individual school spending data as reported under federal ESSA requirements. · shown only
School paths on profiles come from the NCES School Attendance Boundary Survey (SABS) (opens in a new tab), or from a district’s own current boundaries (with none, its published feeder list) where it publishes them: Alvord Unified (opens in a new tab), Anaheim Elementary (opens in a new tab), Anaheim Union High (opens in a new tab), Antelope Valley Union High (opens in a new tab), Cajon Valley Union (opens in a new tab), Capistrano Unified (opens in a new tab), Central Unified (opens in a new tab), Chula Vista Elementary (opens in a new tab), Clovis Unified (opens in a new tab), Coachella Valley Unified (opens in a new tab), Colton Joint Unified (opens in a new tab), Compton Unified (opens in a new tab), Corona-Norco Unified (opens in a new tab), Cupertino Union (opens in a new tab), Elk Grove Unified (opens in a new tab), Escondido Union (opens in a new tab), Escondido Union High (opens in a new tab), Fontana Unified (opens in a new tab), Fremont Union High (opens in a new tab), Fresno Unified (opens in a new tab), Fullerton Elementary (opens in a new tab), Fullerton Joint Union High (opens in a new tab), Garden Grove Unified (opens in a new tab), Hayward Unified (opens in a new tab), Hemet Unified (opens in a new tab), Irvine Unified (opens in a new tab), Jurupa Unified (opens in a new tab), Kern High (opens in a new tab), Kings Canyon Joint Unified (opens in a new tab), Lake Elsinore Unified (opens in a new tab), Lancaster Elementary (opens in a new tab), Long Beach Unified (opens in a new tab), Los Angeles Unified (opens in a new tab), Madera Unified (opens in a new tab), Manteca Unified (opens in a new tab), Marysville Joint Unified (opens in a new tab), Montebello Unified (opens in a new tab), Moreno Valley Unified (opens in a new tab), Mt. Diablo Unified (opens in a new tab), Napa Valley Unified (opens in a new tab), National Elementary (opens in a new tab), Norwalk-La Mirada Unified (opens in a new tab), Oakland Unified (opens in a new tab), Oceanside Unified (opens in a new tab), Orange Unified (opens in a new tab), Pajaro Valley Unified (opens in a new tab), Pomona Unified (opens in a new tab), Redlands Unified (opens in a new tab), Rialto Unified (opens in a new tab), Rowland Unified (opens in a new tab), Sacramento City Unified (opens in a new tab), Saddleback Valley Unified (opens in a new tab), San Bernardino City Unified (opens in a new tab), San Diego Unified (opens in a new tab), San Francisco Unified (opens in a new tab), San Juan Unified (opens in a new tab), San Mateo Union High (opens in a new tab), San Mateo-Foster City (opens in a new tab), San Ramon Valley Unified (opens in a new tab), Santa Ana Unified (opens in a new tab), Santa Barbara Unified (opens in a new tab), Santa Clara Unified (opens in a new tab), Santa Monica-Malibu Unified (opens in a new tab), Sweetwater Union High (opens in a new tab), Temecula Valley Unified (opens in a new tab), Torrance Unified (opens in a new tab), Tustin Unified (opens in a new tab), Twin Rivers Unified (opens in a new tab), Ventura Unified (opens in a new tab), Vista Unified (opens in a new tab), West Contra Costa Unified (opens in a new tab). Each of these links opens in a new tab.
All 34 public sources we use are listed on the data updates page; the About page describes each one.
How sure is each number?
Profiles label each figure by where it comes from.
- Direct
- Official data for this school from CDE or NCES: test results, absenteeism, suspensions, graduation, enrollment.
- Derived
- Computed by SchoolScope from official data: cohort growth, the Scope Score, percentiles. Each profile shows the measures behind its score.
- District
- District-level data applied to a school when no school figure exists. Always labelled where shown.
Research
What does the research say?
Each measure is in the formula because research links it to results that matter for children. The size of each weight is our judgment.
The research behind each measure, and what the studies can’t showGrowth, Advanced vs. Proficient, suspensions, graduation, absenteeism, ELPAC, and what no public data can see
Student growth, in the research
A school’s average score mostly reflects which kids walk in the door. Researchers who studied real school lottery outcomes found that ratings built on student-level growth, each student’s scores against their own earlier scores, predict a school’s effect on students far better than ratings built on proficiency levels (Angrist, Hull, Pathak & Walters, American Economic Review: Insights, 2024). Separately, district growth rates carry almost no relationship to a district’s poverty rate (Reardon, Stanford Education Data Archive; Urban Institute, 2020).
Our cohort growth is not the measure those studies tested. It follows a school’s classes, partly different children each year, not individual students, and it describes the direction scores moved, not what the school caused. We weight it because it is the part of the score least tied to who enrolls.
Advanced vs. Proficient
Reporting one “percent proficient” number throws away real information. A school where 60% of students scored Advanced is a different school from one where 60% just barely reach Proficient, even if both report “80% Proficient or Advanced.” Researcher Andrew Ho called percent-proficient a “funhouse mirror” that distorts real differences between schools (Educational Researcher, 2008). Splitting the two levels apart recovers what a single number erases.
Suspensions
Kids assigned to a higher-suspension school go on to worse adult outcomes — more arrests, less schooling completed — even after accounting for who attends (Bacher-Hicks, Billings & Deming, American Economic Journal: Policy, 2024). The study covers one metro area, so we hold the exact size of the effect loosely, but the research design isolates a school’s discipline practice from who’s enrolled there, which is why we treat suspension rate as a real signal.
Graduation rate (high school)
In one large study of Texas charter schools, campuses that raised test scores didn’t produce a measurable earnings bump years later— but campuses that raised graduation rates did (Dobbie & Fryer, 2020). That’s one study in one state, and we say so. It’s still a big part of why graduation carries the largest single weight in our high school formula.
Absenteeism
Attendance is one of the most reliable predictors of graduation we’ve found in the research, sometimes stronger than test scores (Allensworth & Easton, University of Chicago Consortium on School Research). The catch: a school’s raw absenteeism rate is shaped mostly by a family’s health, transportation, and housing stability (Liu, Fordham Institute, 2023). A high rate can mean a struggling school, or it can mean a school serving a lot of families dealing with things no school can fix. That is why it carries a small weight.
ELPAC proficiency
No study we’ve found validates a school’s raw English Learner proficiency rate, on its own, as a measure of school quality. We weight it anyway because schools demonstrably shape how fast English Learners reach proficiency, through program design and teacher stability (Umansky & Reardon, American Educational Research Journal, 2014; U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2024). But the rate is also heavily shaped by things a school doesn’t control — how recently a student arrived, and how much English they started with (REL Northwest, 2016). A school that enrolls a lot of newcomers will score lower here through no fault of its teaching.
What no public data can see
The single biggest school factor we found in the research isn’t in our formula, or in anyone else’s public data: the individual teacher in front of your kid. One study tracked more than a million students through tax records and found that a single year with a better teacher raised college attendance and adult earnings years later (Chetty, Friedman & Rockoff, American Economic Review, 2014). No public dataset publishes teacher-level results, and even trained researchers can’t reliably judge a teacher by watching one lesson (the MET Project, 23,000+ videotaped lessons). That’s why every school profile ends with a question to ask on your visit, instead of a claim about teaching we can’t back up.
Reasonable people can weigh this research differently than we did. The studies above tell us these dimensions matter. They don’t tell us exactly how much — the weights in the table above are our judgment call, made in the open so you can check it against your own.
Who attends
Why don’t demographics count in the score?
A school’s score answers one question: how do its results compare with other California schools at its level? Who attends is shown beside the score, never inside it.
0
points are added to a score or taken away from it for a school’s racial mix, income mix or neighborhood.
What others tried, our approach, and the principle behind it
What others tried
GreatSchools added an Equity Rating to its public scores. In July 2025 it replaced that rating with a mark for schools with strong results for students from all backgrounds; its student-group data, it said, “no longer factors into the overall GreatSchools Rating” (GreatSchools, July 31, 2025). A 2019 Chalkbeat analysis found its earlier ratings correlated strongly with the share of low-income students across major metros; GreatSchools has since reweighted its formula toward academic growth, and no independent analysis has measured whether the current rating still tracks demographics.
Some rating sites assign a diversity grade using a diversity index — a mathematical measure of how evenly students are distributed across racial and ethnic groups. The problem: diversity indices (Shannon entropy, Simpson’s index, and similar measures) are lowest in communities where one group is the majority. A school that’s 90% Hispanic in a 90% Hispanic neighborhood scores low on a diversity index because of who lives nearby. Scoring diversity this way penalizes the schools that serve majority-minority communities.
We haven’t found a diversity scoring approach in public ratings that avoids this trap. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible — but we weren’t willing to adopt one without being confident it works.
Our approach
What we show. Every public school profile shows who attends: students by race and ethnicity, the share eligible for free and reduced-price meals, and how the school’s enrollment compares with the surrounding neighborhood. We also show results for each student group: test scores, absenteeism and suspension rates for low-income students, English learners and every racial and ethnic group. Spending per student and the student-teacher ratio are shown too.
What we leave out. We don’t roll demographics into the Scope Score. A school’s racial composition, income mix, or neighborhood profile is never added to or subtracted from its score. Demographics are never an input to the formula.
What group results show
Subgroup outcomes can reveal differences that a school-wide average hides. Different absence rates across groups warrant attention, but do not establish different levels of engagement or show what caused the gap. Health, access barriers, grade mix, and school practices need closer examination before drawing conclusions.
The share of English learners reaching the top ELPAC level is the one place where serving a specific population directly feeds the Scope Score. Research links program design and teacher stability to how fast English learners reach fluency, which is why we weight it. The rate also depends heavily on when students arrived and where they started — a school with many newcomers will show a lower rate for reasons that have nothing to do with teaching. Read it against schools serving similar populations; the research section above carries the evidence on both points.
Why the two stay apart
We don’t penalize schools for serving disadvantaged communities. The Scope Score answers one question: how do this school’s results compare with other California schools at its level? Group results answer a different one: how does it do for students like my child? We keep the two apart so one number doesn’t blend them.
Cohort growth barely moves with family income, so it is the part of the score least tied to who enrolls. It describes direction, not what the school caused. Proficiency levels, ELPAC rates and climate numbers partly reflect who enrolls, which is why growth has a weight of its own beside them. Demographics and group results are shown on every profile and are never part of the score.
Reasonable people can disagree with this choice. Some will say we’re leaving important information out of the score. We’re open to that argument. We think showing who attends beside the score gives you more information than one blended number would.
Corrections and changes
Dated corrections and changes to the method are on their own page, newest first: corrections and changes.
Cite this page
SchoolScope, “Scope Score Methodology,” 2026, schoolscope.co/methodology.
To pin the version you relied on, link the dated entry on the corrections page as well. Our derived dataset (Scope Scores, percentiles and the figures computed from them) is licensed CC BY 4.0 (opens in a new tab): reuse with attribution and a link back to schoolscope.co. See the press page. Questions about the method? Get in touch.
Questions
Common questions
How is the Scope Score calculated?
SchoolScope scores 8,761 of the 9,443 California public and charter schools families can choose between, on a scale from 50 to 100, using official CDE data. 75 is the typical California school. 100 is the best result in the state. In the elementary and middle school score, students scoring Advanced count for 42% and students scoring Proficient or Advanced count for 23%. The other measures: cohort growth counts for 20%, and chronic absenteeism, suspension rate and English learners reaching the top level of the state’s English test count for 5% each. In the high school score, students scoring Advanced count for 22% and students scoring Proficient or Advanced count for 18%. The other measures: graduation rate counts for 25%, college or career readiness counts for 20%, and chronic absenteeism, suspension rate and English learners reaching the top level of the state’s English test count for 5% each. Schools where enrollment is assigned rather than chosen — juvenile court, community day and special-education schools — publish their underlying numbers without a score; a further 682 choosable schools go unscored for other reasons. These include grade configurations the formula cannot score, missing current data, and high schools whose reported College/Career Indicator cohort is below SchoolScope’s 30-student minimum for this score. CDE may still report a Prepared rate for those schools — see the limitations section.
Can you show a worked example?
Take a hypothetical elementary school. Say it posts 45% Advanced, 78% Proficient or Advanced, above-average cohort growth (how its 5th graders scored compared with its 3rd graders two years earlier, partly different children), 8 in 100 students chronically absent, 1.0% suspended at least once, and 42% of English learners reaching the top level of the state’s English test. None of those raw numbers go straight into the score. Each one is first compared with every other elementary school in California that year, measured by how far it sits above or below the state average. Those six comparisons are then combined using the elementary weights: students scoring Advanced count for 42%, students scoring Proficient or Advanced count for 23%, cohort growth counts for 20%, and chronic absenteeism, suspension rate and English learners reaching the top level of the state’s English test count for 5% each. For absenteeism and suspension, lower is better. The weighted result is then placed on the Scope Score scale, where the typical elementary school in California shows 75 and the best result shows 100. A school above average on all six measures gets a score near the top. A school above average on only a few gets a score closer to 75. The number places the school against other California elementary schools on these six measures. It isn’t a raw average of test scores, a guarantee about one student’s experience, or a measure of teaching quality, school culture or fit for your child.
What data does SchoolScope use?
The Scope Score itself is built from official public sources: state tests (CAASPP), chronic absenteeism rates, suspension rates, graduation rates (ACGR), ELPAC results and College/Career Indicator data from the California Department of Education, plus enrollment and demographics from the NCES Common Core of Data. School profiles add data from the University of California, the College Board, and the International Baccalaureate Organization. The data sources section lists the 12 behind the score and beside it (6 scored, 6 shown only); the data updates page lists all 34 public sources we use, with their years.
Why does SchoolScope separate Advanced from Proficient?
Most rating sites report one combined number: the share at Proficient or Advanced. A school where 60% scored Advanced is different from one where 10% did. We weight the Advanced share heavily because it counts the students who go beyond the standard as well as those who reach it.
Are elementary, middle, and high schools ranked together?
No. Schools are always ranked within their own level — elementary against elementary, middle against middle, high against high. Each level has its own formula, built from the data that level has. Some schools are also ranked only against schools of their own type — see the next question.
Does every California public school get a Scope Score and a rank?
No. A Scope Score ranks schools a family can choose between. Where enrollment is assigned by court, expulsion or placement — juvenile court, county community, community day and special-education schools — we publish the same underlying test, attendance and suspension data but withhold the score, band, pattern and rank. Continuation schools and schools the state flags under its Dashboard Alternative School Status (DASS) can receive a score and, when scored, are ranked only against schools of their own type. Other public and charter schools — including magnet, gifted/STEM and virtual academies the state happens to code under the same type as at-risk programs — can be scored and ranked statewide when their results meet the scoring rules (we score 8,761 of the 9,443 California public and charter schools families can choose between). The rest may have a grade configuration the formula cannot score or missing current data; some high schools also have a CDE-reported overall College/Career Indicator cohort below SchoolScope’s 30-student minimum for this score. We withhold the score and rank in that case even when CDE reports a Prepared rate. See the limitations section.
What does cohort growth measure?
Cohort growth compares the same school’s cohort measured twice — 2024’s 3rd graders measured again as 2026’s 5th graders — using Smarter Balanced scale scores, which are built for cross-year, cross-grade comparison. It is partly different children, since students move in and out. 80.9% of elementary and 60.6% of middle schools with a Scope Score carry a published growth figure. 12.6% of elementary and 11.0% of middle schools have a real cohort that’s too small to publish — growth is still weighted normally in the score, only the figure is withheld. 6.5% of elementary and 28.4% of middle schools have no usable two-year cohort at all, and the growth weight is redistributed across the other five measures instead. This is different from the grade gap you may see quoted elsewhere — one year’s 5th graders against the same year’s 3rd graders, in proficiency percentage points. Those are different children, and because the proficiency bar rises with each grade, most California schools post a negative grade gap in the same year their cohorts gain about 76 scale-score points. Only cohort growth is scored.
Why is graduation rate the biggest weight for high schools?
Graduation rate carries 25% of the high school Scope Score, the largest single weight, because finishing high school shapes what comes next more than any one test does.
How is chronic absenteeism used in the score?
Chronic absenteeism is the share of students missing at least 10% of the days they were enrolled to attend, including excused absences such as illness. Lower recorded absence raises our score, with a base weight of 5% at every level. The school-wide rate does not explain the reasons for absence, measure family commitment, or establish school quality. Grade mix, health, access barriers, and school practices can all affect it; our current formula does not isolate those effects.
What are the limitations of SchoolScope’s scores?
The score measures only part of a school. We can’t measure teacher quality, school culture, arts programs, or student well-being. Our cohort growth tracks school-level aggregates, not individual students. Nearly every school shows positive cohort growth in raw scale points, because children learn more as they get older, so growth only tells you something once it’s compared with other schools at the same level, which is how the score uses it. Small schools have their scores smoothed toward the statewide average, and growth claims are withheld below the tested-student floor. High school Scope Scores have no growth measure. The 369 open schools where enrollment is assigned rather than chosen get no score, and 549 continuation and alternative schools are ranked only against schools of their own type.
How often is SchoolScope data updated?
School data is updated annually when the California Department of Education publishes new results. Elementary and middle Scope Scores use the 2026 tests (CAASPP 2025–26); high school Scope Scores use the 2026 tests (2025–26), because they include graduation and college-readiness records that finish a year later.
Guides
Keep reading
Guide
What school rankings get wrong, and what we can and can’t fix
Why we built SchoolScope.
Guide
Why the same share Proficient or Advanced can mean two different schools
What the combined proficiency number hides, and what to ask about it.
Guide
CAASPP scores explained: how to read your child’s report
How to read the renamed proficiency levels behind every score on this site.
Corrections and changes Explore all California schools About SchoolScope and every data source