The Brief

From standardized test scores to student demographics and suspension rates, there’s a lot to consider when choosing a school.

LAist talked to parents, educators and researchers to better understand what different sources of information can tell you about your child’s school or one they might attend.

“You can look at all the information and you can analyze all the available data, but you still don't know how it’s going to play out for an individual kid,” said Los Angeles County educator and parent Andrea Schpok. “You gotta make the best choice given the information available.”

Though the simple appeal of a single number or star rating offered by some websites is tempting, the experts we interviewed say there is no one metric that defines a great school.

What is GreatSchools? 

This story was prompted by parents who wanted to know if there was an alternative to the ranking site, GreatSchools.

The website aggregates publicly available data about schools. One prominent feature on each school’s page is a 1-10 rating. These scores also appear on home listings for several real estate websites.

Researchers have criticized GreatSchools and other school rating sites for oversimplifying what actually makes a school good and for steering families away from low-income schools that serve many Black and Latino students.

The basis of the criticism is that GreatSchools and similar sites rely in part on standardized test scores to calculate school ratings.

“The scores tell you something, but usually they are — across the whole country — highly correlated with socioeconomic status,” said Learning Policy Institute President Linda Darling-Hammond. “A lot of what they tell you is how well off economically are students in this school, rather than how much is the school contributing to their gains and growth.”

Part of the problem is that standardized tests in English language arts and math are one of the few widely administered and tracked metrics.

“We've never really invested in collecting data that is just much harder to get at than a simple test,” said Rebecca Jacobsen, who studies education, politics and policy at Michigan State University.

GreatSchools has changed how it calculates ratings over the years and now factors in how much scores increase year-to-year, college readiness, and an “equity” score that measures how students from disadvantaged backgrounds perform academically.

The nonprofit also offers schools the opportunity to provide information and a space for parents, educators, and alum to leave reviews.

“It's a continual process for us to find the right information to share with each parent,” said GreatSchools CEO Jon Deane.

Deane said the information on GreatSchools is meant to help parents start their school choice journey, not be the sole deciding factor.

“We want to make sure we can help people find what their version of great is,” Deane said.

Where else can you go to find information about a school? 

Individual school websites/social media

Many schools maintain their own websites and social media accounts. There is a wide range of quality in individual school websites. At their best, these platforms are a window into the school’s history, curriculum, current programs and events. On the other end of the spectrum, information can be sparse or outdated. 

Look for: 

• Events 
• Tours 
• Extracurricular activities and after- and before-school programs
• How to contact teachers and administrators
• Parent and family resources

Where does the data come from? Typically these websites are maintained by district and school staff.

Keep in mind: Parent groups might maintain their own websites and social media accounts that can give you additional insight into a specific school. 

Los Angeles Unified School District open data 

LAUSD leaders in 2018 voted to create a new website to present a variety of information about students and school sites. 

Highlights:

• Attendance
• School demographics
• Budgets
• Suspensions
• Student and family surveys about safety and school climate
• Students with disabilities
• Progress of English Language Learners
  

Where does the data come from? District records, the California Department of Education, the College Board (which administers tests including AP exams) and The National Student Clearinghouse.

Keep in mind: There are several ways to navigate the website. If you want to search for schools in a specific area or compare multiple schools, use the “explorer” tool. There is also an option to view schools on a map.

California School Dashboard 

A collection of data maintained by the California Department of Education available at the state, district, and individual school level intended to hold schools accountable for meeting standards. 

Highlights:

• Chronic absenteeism 
• English Language Learner progress
• Enrollment 
• Demographics
• Suspension rates
• Graduation rate 
• College/ career readiness as defined by a series of measures including meeting the requirements for state university admission or completing career and technical education classes.

Where does the data come from? The California Department of Education, districts, schools and County Offices of Education. 

Keep in mind: The dashboard doesn’t assign schools a single score or rating. Many measures are assigned a color from red (worst) to blue (best) based on performance from the current year and growth from the prior year. You can also see how a school compares to the state overall. 

DataQuest

Another collection of data maintained by the California Department of Education available at the state, county, district, and individual school level. This site includes some information not available through the California School Dashboard and  in some cases, parses the data by grade level. 

Highlights:

• Stability rate, the percentage of students that completed a full year of instruction at the same school. 
• California Healthy Kids Survey results, which includes information on school climate and safety
• School staff demographic data
• Rate of high school graduates attending college

Where does the data come from? The California Department of Education, districts, schools and County Offices of Education. 

Keep in mind: Not all data is available at the individual school level. 

School Accountability Report Card (SARC) 

An annual assessment that public K-12 schools are required to perform and submit to the state each year. 

Highlights:

• Teacher qualifications
• Textbook updates
• School facility conditions
• Average class sizes
• Career and technical education classes available
• Average teacher salaries
• Student support staff on campus (librarian, nurse, psychologist, etc.) 

Where does the data come from? Individual schools. 

Keep in mind: The state’s website isn’t super user-friendly. Search for an individual school here and then click the button that says “view full sarc” to see all of the available information.

What do the experts look for? 

Clear family values

These will vary, but education researcher Jack Schneider said defining what’s important to your family will help you sort through the data.

“ And if [test scores are] what folks value, there's nothing wrong with starting there,” said Schneider, who directs the Center for Education Policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “But, people shouldn't stop there.”

For example, when Schneider and his wife, a teacher, started looking for a school for their child, they knew she’d have plenty of academic support at home.

“The top priority for us, when looking for a school, was actually that the school was a diverse one, that it served all different kinds of students coming from all different kinds of families,” Schneider said. “We knew that we could give her all kinds of academic advantages at home, but we couldn't give her that — we couldn't just inside our household teach her how to live in a diverse democracy.”

Schneider, who’s also written a book about measuring school quality beyond test scores, also looked at what resources were available to students and how long teachers had worked at the school.

Teacher quality and retention  

 "Having a stable set of qualified teachers is very important,” Darling-Hammond said. “If teachers want to stay in the school, that's a good sign for whether kids are being well taught and whether parents are going to be able to connect with experienced teachers who know a lot about how to make things work well.”

Where to find it: 

• Check the school accountability report card. It shows the number and percentage of teachers who are credentialed to teach their assigned subject and class. 
• Ask administrators about teacher retention. That data is not listed publicly. Instead you’ll have to ask the principal or other staff about turnover and the experience of educators on staff. 

School climate 

This is a broad, wonky educational term that can refer to a variety of factors that affect whether students feel safe and supported.

School climate data is less universal than other information like demographics or standardized test outcomes. One potential source of information is annual surveys to students and families.

“I think these are very high quality data sources that allow us to learn things that we would never learn from a standardized test score,” Schneider said.

Where to find it: 

• DataQuest: This site links to the California Healthy Kids Survey results, which includes information on school climate and safety at the district and county level. 
• The School Accountability Report Card (see up above) provides a school’s suspension and expulsion rates.
• In LAUSD’s open data profile there are several places to view school climate data. 
  
  • Select “Local Control Accountability Plan” from the dashboard view dropdown menu and “School Safety and Climate” from the metric sub groups to see survey results about whether:
    
    • Students feel safe at and a part of their school 
    • Parents feel their child is safe on school grounds and welcome to participate at school 
    • Staff feel safe and supported at school 
  • The “Parent, Student, and Community Engagement” metric subgroup offers additional survey results from parents. 
  • Schools that are part of the Black Student Achievement Plan also collect additional survey data about: 
    
    • Access to mental and socio-emotional health resources 
    • Participation in extracurricular activities
    • Availability of curriculum that matches students individual experiences
• If you have the opportunity to talk to students or alumni you can ask, “Did you feel … “
  
  • A sense of belonging?
  • Connected to teachers and peers?
  • Safe at school?

An emphasis on social and emotional learning

There are many non-academic skills that live under the social and emotional learning umbrella including understanding and managing feelings and building relationships.

“It means that students are learning how to get along with each other, how to solve their own problems, what to do with tough situations… and how to problem solve in good ways,” Darling-Hammond said.

Where to find it: 

• There’s no dashboard to track social and emotional learning at individual schools. Investigate a school’s website, and talk to educators, administrators and other parents to understand how this type of instruction is prioritized. 

School conditions and cleanliness 

The quality of school facilities is linked to student achievement — it’s easier to learn in clean, climate-controlled, well-lit classrooms. Poorly maintained schools may even pose health risks to students and staff.

Where to find it: 

• In the School Accountability Report Card (SARC): Look for the section that says “School Facility Conditions and Planned Improvements” to see self-reported information about the status of restrooms, heating, cooling and ventilation systems and overall maintenance. One caveat, the categories (poor, fair, and good) are broad and reflect the conditions of the school at a single point in time. For example, an inspection of the HVAC system in the winter may not reflect the potential for a breakdown in the midst of a heatwave. 
• Ask your school or district about a Facilities Master Plan: This can help you better understand medium-to-long term plans for repairing and building school facilities. 

The one thing everyone recommends

Your own observations. Touring schools is time-consuming, but researchers, parents and educators all said there’s no better way to evaluate a campus than by visiting in person, preferably while class is in session. 

“The very best thing that people can do is go to the school and try to watch the way that educators interact with students, the way that students interact with each other, and the way that families are included or not in the life of a school,” Schneider said. “Once you do that, you really get a sense of what kind of place kids are going to school.”

Darling-Hammond looks for “joyful and respectful” interactions between adults and students.

“ I look to see if students work is on the walls,” Darling-Hammond said. “Because if it is, it says that this school values what students are doing and that that is the central idea of what's going on there.”

Set up a school tour: 

• Every school is going to handle tours a bit differently. Start at the school’s website and call the front office for more information. 

Questions to ask teachers/administrators: 

• What opportunities are there for family involvement? 
• What types of homework are students assigned? 
• How are grades calculated? 
• What extracurriculars are offered? How can students access those opportunities?
• Is there before or after school care? 
• Is transportation provided? 
• For younger students: What opportunities are there for play? 

Questions to ask students:

• How do you feel about coming to school? 
• What is interesting for you in school? 
• What’s your favorite part of school? 
• Do the children here get along with each other? 
• Are teachers available when you have a problem? 

Illustration: Olivia Hughes / LAist

It’s about the size of a park bench and made of steel and wood. The bench’s arm rests are formed by the letters “L” and “A” in a design that’s unmistakable to any sports fan. But the welder-artist who created it says it’s not a Dodgers bench.

“This is about civic pride, L.A. pride. I made a design statement saying that it has nothing affiliated with the Dodgers,” said Steve Campos.

Campos grew up near Dodger Stadium, raised by parents who were die-hard Dodgers fans. So much, that they named him after Steve Garvey but that legacy doesn’t keep him from confronting how the Dodgers benefitted from the mass displacement of working-class people from Chavez Ravine after World War Two. That’s why he calls it an L.A. Bench, and not a Dodgers Bench.

The logo may be synonymous with the city's beloved baseball team, but the design of the interlocking letters was used by the L.A. Angels minor league baseball team before the Dodgers moved to L.A. in 1958.

“The monogram was here before the Dodgers,” Campos said.

A second-generation welder

Welding is the Campos family business. His father created gates and security bars for windows and doors for L.A. clients. That was the foundation for the work Campos has done for two decades since graduating from Lincoln High School, L.A. Trade Tech College, and enrolling in a summer program at Art Center in Pasadena.

The inspiration for the L.A. Bench came last year while he was playing around in his shop creating versions of the L.A. logo. A friend he hangs with at Echo Park Lake asked Campos to make him a piece of furniture.

“I was trying to figure out what my friend Curly wanted. He liked Dodgers and drinking and getting into fights, so I was like, 'Let me make something with the LA monogram,'” he said.

Welder-artist Steve Campos created whimsical steel sculptures with the LA logo.

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Courtesy Steve Campos

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It didn’t design itself. He said he had to lengthen the legs on the “A” and lean the back of the “L” in order to make the bench functional. In the process, he’s made a piece of furniture with a ubiquitous logo that he’s embedded with his own L.A. pride, as well as city history past and present.

LA civic pride travels to Japan

Campos vacationed in Japan the last week of April and took advantage of the trip to reach out to people who may be interested in the L.A. Bench. He was caught off guard by people’s reaction when he showed them pictures of it.

“They look at it and they go, 'Oh, Ohtani bench,'” he said.

For them, it’s still a bench embedded with pride, he said, but centered around Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani, an icon in his native Japan.

Campos has made four L.A. benches and is selling them fully assembled, he said, for $2,500 each — taking into account his labor and how costly the raw materials have become. For now, he’s offering the metal parts as a package for $500, which requires the buyer to purchase the wood for the seat and the back — an easy process, he said.

While he has no plans to mass produce the L.A. Bench, he does have one goal in mind that shows how hard it is for him to separate L.A. civic pride and the Dodgers.

“I would love to get a couple of them installed at Dodger Stadium,” he said.

The Venice Boardwalk after sunset has generally been a no-go zone for tourists and locals alike, as the beachside bars and restaurants close on the early side and safety is often an issue. Now, a group of artists is out to bring some vibrancy to the creative neighborhood with a series of new installations that will include live evening performances – and even a “Venice Opera House.”

“Let's play with light and let's play with sound and give people a reason to come to the Boardwalk after sundown,” said artist and entrepreneur Stefan Ashkenazy, who is curating the project and owns the buildings housing them. “I mean, let's just be open 24 hours a day.”

The concept doesn’t have an official name yet, but he’s been calling it “See World.”

Artist James Ostrer's space looks out from a bed through the fence to the ocean at Venice Beach.

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Laura Hertzfeld

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LAist

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William Attaway, a longtime Venice artist, created a gallery space filled with various paintings and sculptures.

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Laura Hertzfeld

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LAist

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The pair of modern buildings on the Venice Boardwalk at Thornton Ave. – with their big balconies, floor-to-ceiling glass windows, and seven open garage-style retail spaces – have sat mostly empty since Snapchat vacated their beachside offices in 2019. Ashkenazy recently bought the building and recruited artists to fill those front-facing spaces with creative work until a full-time tenant comes in.

Over the past several weeks the installations have been created in real-time, in public.

All of the projects are loosely along the theme of “home,” with each artist claiming a “room” in the two buildings that stretch across a full block on the Boardwalk. Several local Venice artists are featured, including William Attaway, whose intricate mosaic work is recognizable on the Venice public restrooms along the beach. Attaway’s space features a floating larger-than-life-sized statue and various works in a mini-gallery. In the next room is Robin Murez’s pieces, featuring carved wooden seats from her beloved neighborhood Venice Flying Carousel.

Ashkenazy is no stranger to wild (and wildly successful) art ideas. He’s the owner of the Petit Ermitage hotel in West Hollywood, a longtime haven for visiting artists, and the founder of the decade-old Bombay Beach Biennale, where artists install all kinds of work in an annual event near the Salton Sea. Many of the artists from that community are featured at the Venice project.

A "Venice Opera House" will host pop-up music events throughout the summer.

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Laura Hertfeldz

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LAist

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New York-based artist Greg Haberny's paintings on the wall of his Venice space.

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Laura Hertzfeld

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LAist

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New York-based artist Greg Haberny and London-based artist James Ostrer have brought some of their work in the Bombay Beach Biennale to the Venice project. Their windows on the Boardwalk both speak to a child-like sense of wonder and creativity.

“I think it's just kind of exploring and playing a little bit, to have the freedom to be able to do that,” Haberny says of his imagined child’s bedroom space, which includes a fort made out of puffy cheese balls. “It's a big space, too.
It's beautiful.”

Ostrer is experimenting with a performance art idea where he sits in bed amongst a room full of his own artwork, which he describes as “happy art with an edge.” Looking out at the ocean from the bed, he’s invited passersby to sit and have chats with him about his work or anything else they want to talk about.

“It’s a very intimate space, so you have a different kind of conversation,” he said. “I use art to channel human creativity, and [talk about] dark things.”

While there are open fences that block off the spaces, they aren’t sealed up at night. Both Ashkenazy and the team of artists seemed open to the idea that anything could happen and that the installations are a conversation with the public – and with that comes some risk.

Greg Haberny (right) works with his assistants on an installation featuring kid-inspired graffiti art and a "cheesy puff" fort.

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Laura Hertzfeld

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“I don't really know if I [would] say worried, but I guess it's just the cost of doing business,” Haberny said. “I don't really make things to get damaged or broken, sure. But I have done [things like] burned all my paintings and then made paint out of ash.”

While he’s felt safe – and even slept overnight in the installation – Ostrer has been collaborating with a local female artist who performs in a pig mask in front of his installation some nights. Watching her perform, he said, has taught him about the vulnerability of women in public spaces like the Boardwalk. “I've started to, on a very fractional level, have seen how scary that is. Because I've sat in the bed behind her performing at the front here… the way in which men are approaching her and shrieking at her … it's shocking.”

Ashkenazy says he will keep the artists in the space, potentially rotating new ones in, until a fulltime tenant takes over.

“This is an experiment … and after acquiring the building, the intention wasn't, ‘let's open a bunch of public art spaces,’ he said. “It is kind of …what the building wanted and listening to what the Boardwalk needed. Let's play, let's have the artists that we love and appreciate have a space to play and engage and give the locals and the visitors to the Boardwalk something to experience.”

A new trail across the beloved natural area of Elephant Hill in Northeast Los Angeles is officially opening this weekend.

The route is years in the making, and it's a big milestone in the decades-long conservation efforts to preserve this local jewel in the community of El Sereno.

The hiking trail connects one side of Elephant Hill to the other — from the corner of Pullman Street and Harriman Avenue all the way across to Lathrop Street.

It's 0.75 miles in total, but packs a punch.

"It's a pretty straight shot, but because of the terrain — the trail is kind of twisty and curvy. There's switchbacks — and great views," Elva Yañez, board president of the nonprofit Save Elephant Hill, said.

People have always been able to access the 110-acre green space, but Yañez said the new trail provides a safe and easy way to navigate the steep hillsides.

The El Sereno nonprofit has been working for two decades to preserve the land. Illegal dumping and off-roading have damaged the open space over the years. And the majority of the 110 acres are privately owned by an estimated 200 individual owners.

Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA) joined the efforts in 2018, spurred by a $700,000 grant from Los Angeles County Regional Park and Open Space District, in part, to build the trail. The local agency received some $2 million in grants from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy to add to the 10 acres of Elephant Hill it manages and conserves. This year, MCRA acquired an additional 12 parcels — or about 2.4 acres.

And the spiffy new footpath — with trail signage, information kiosks and landscape boulders — is not just a long-sought-for victory but a beginning in a sense.

"We know that it means a lot to the community," Sarah Kevorkian, who oversees the trail project for MRCA, said. "We're wrapping up the trail, but it really feels like the beginning of all that is to come."

A hint of that vision already exists — for hikers traversing the new route, courtesy of Test Plot, the L.A.-based nonprofit that works to revitalize depleted lands.

"They're able to see at the end of the trail, at the 'test plot' — exactly what a restored Elephant Hill would look like," Yañez said.

Here's a preview:

A coalition of residents from across the San Gabriel Valley are mobilizing over a battery storage project and possibly more industrial development in the City of Industry they say could pollute communities next door.

A protest is scheduled today in neighboring Rowland Heights, targeting a 400-megawatt battery energy storage facility sited on about 9 acres that was approved by the City of Industry leaders in January.

Such Battery Energy Storage Systems, or BESS, are used to keep the power grid stable, especially as output from renewable energy sources like solar and wind fluctuate. But fires involving lithium batteries at some sites have heightened environmental and public health fears.

Because of the City of Industry’s unusual, sprawling shape stretching along the 60 Freeway, it borders on more than a dozen communities, meaning what happens there can have far-reaching impact.

“Pollution does not end right at the border,” said Andrew Yip, an organizer with No Data Centers SGV Coalition. “Pollution travels.”

Some local activists with the Puente Hills Community Preservation Association have challenged the approval of the battery facility under the California Environmental Quality Act.

Beyond environmental concerns, locals have also been frustrated with how decisions are made by officials in the City of Industry, a municipality that’s almost entirely zoned for industrial use and has less than 300 residents.

Organizers say they’ve struggled to get direct responses from city officials whom they say have replaced regular meetings with special meetings, which under state law require less advance notice.

A city spokesperson has not responded to requests for comment.

The so-called Marici Energy Storage System Facility would be run by Aypa Power. The fact that the battery storage developer is owned by the private equity giant Blackstone, a major investor in AI and data centers, has only fueled concerns that a battery storage facility would lay the groundwork for data center development.

A request for comment from Aypa was not returned.

Today’s protest is taking place at Peter F. Schabarum Regional Park in Rowland Heights across the street from the Puente Hills Mall, a largely vacant “dead” mall, which activists fear could be redeveloped into a data center and bring higher utility costs and greater air and noise pollution.

Yip pointed out that industrial developments make a lot of money for the City of Industry.

“But none of these surrounding communities receive any of those benefits,” Yip said. “Yet we have to put up with all the harmful effects and impacts from this city that does all this development without really reaching out.”