California School Ratings

Every buyer asks me about local schools and their ratings. I would like to share my input and resources that I use to assist my clients.

The best way to find the rating of a school is through California School Dashboard, which is designed by the California Department of Education. This rating system is fairly new and you can check data starting in 2017. The new system uses colors to rate schools. Red is the lowest performance level, orange is the second lowest, yellow is the middle point, green is the second highest, and blue is the highest performance level. You can search by school, county, or district name.

Playing with keywords on the dashboard is essential! For example, my client recently could not find the school he was searching for on the dashboard. To find Edenvale Elementary School, he searched ‘Edenvale Elementary School’ and the school would not come up. He instead had to type ‘Edenvale Elementary’ for the school to come up.

Prior to 2017, there was a different rating system called API (academic performance index). The state of California used API to measure performance in schools from 1999 to 2013. API scores ranged from a low of 200 to a high of 1000. Unfortunately, as of December 2018, you can no longer access the API rating system.

There are other popular websites such as GreatSchools where the information is easy to read and understand. It comes with ratings and reviews from parents. Click here to view the rating method they use. Websites like School & Housing and School Ratings can be used a references for schools ratings as well.

The reliability of these websites is for you to decide. I would strongly recommend California School Dashboard for school ratings. To verify the school that your child would attend, I would recommend calling the school district in your city.