ACSA’s Accountability Task Force has developed a set of recommendations aimed at improving the state’s new accountability and continuous improvement system. ACSA will also host a webinar next month in a continuing effort to help school leaders use this tool in school planning. The task force’s findings are contained in the report “In Focus: Recommendations for providing a comprehensive portrait of school performance on the California School Dashboard,” which is available on ACSA’s Resource Hub at content.acsa.org. Among its findings, the task force found that student groups that face unique challenges, such as foster youth or special education students, can skew data on the California School Dashboard, the color-coded school performance website launched in 2017. For example, one district saw a 100 percent turnover rate of its foster youth population due to group home placement practices. This district’s performance levels on the Chronic Absenteeism indicator went from largely “Green” to largely “Red” in one year due to the number of students being placed by the state in the group home setting. “While ACSA appreciates the CDE’s and SBE’s careful review and consideration of revisions to each of the performance indicators, these discussions have occurred for the most part in isolation, without consideration for how all of the indicators fit into one coherent system of accountability,” the report reads. “Based upon ACSA’s review of the performance data, as well as feedback from our Task Force, we have found there are several technical issues that, if remedied, could provide a more accurate and useful portrait of school performance.” In December 2016, ACSA established an Accountability Task Force whose role was to support the successful implementation of the state’s accountability and continuous improvement system, and to better inform the work of state agencies based on practitioners’ experiences and perspectives.  The task force was comprised of approximately 20 members representative of California’s regions and the different administrator roles, including principals, directors and assistant superintendents, superintendents, and county office of education officials, with expertise in all aspects of the local, state and federal programs and knowledge of each of the state performance indicators.  Over the past three years, the task force has met to review and discuss agenda items coming before the California State Board of Education, and to help inform ACSA’s position on key policy and implementation issues. ACSA staff are using the task force’s findings to advocate for changes to the Dashboard, which would require statutory changes to legislation, action by the State Board of Education, and changes to rules developed by the California Department of Education.  ACSA is also encouraging more trainings and communications to school and district leaders as a way to improve the Dashboard. As a result, ACSA is hosting a webinar with the California Department of Education on August 2 that will allow administrators to look at how data translates to student performance, as well as get an advance look at changes to the Dashboard coming in the 2019-20 school year. The training will also offer an opportunity for administrators to ask questions.  Read the full report at bit.ly/ACSA2019Dashboard