From Students Rights to Real Accountability
Last year, TCLA’s “Students’ Bill of Rights” explored the basic school conditions that all students have a right to expect. This year, TCLA looks at how students and parents can hold local and state education officials accountable for providing those conditions. TCLA’s Virtual Report Card Series invites students, parents, and teachers to examine the conditions of learning at their schools and share this information with local and state education officials. This project promises to create new lines of communication between a more involved and better informed public and the officials charged with providing quality education for all.

How Do California’s Schools Report on the Conditions of Learning?
California law requires districts to report on conditions in local schools through the School Accountability Report Cards or SARCs. The state’s theory of accountability is that people will work effectively to improve the schools if they have good information about their schools. Accordingly, school districts must report information on school demographics, teacher qualifications, and student scores on standardized achievement tests.

Where Do the SARCs fall short?
Often, the information reported in SARCs is misleading or inaccurate. Their most serious shortcoming is their failure to tell if students receive their rightful conditions for learning. SARCs do not use the knowledge and experiences of students, parents, and teachers to identify school problems or solutions. At most, SARCs can indicate some serious problems, but they don’t identify what causes the problems or who is responsible for fixing them.

What Is a Virtual School Report Card?
A “virtual” school report card is an Internet report prepared by people who are not normally authorized to issue school report cards—people such as students, parents, and teachers. The TCLA “Virtual School Report Cards” will emphasize information normally missing from the official report card. For example, each month, the virtual report cards will feature information not addressed by the state’s accountability system such as the quality of instructional materials or efforts to promote a safe and democratic school environment.

What Will the Virtual School Report Card Look Like?
Actually, there will be two kinds of Virtual School Report Cards. First, there will be locally produced school report cards. Participating groups will report on their own schools to TCLA, following the outline or timeline suggested below. Groups will do this in different ways, depending on their own schools and members. We are hoping that many schools will officially embrace the Virtual School Report Card produced within their school community. The second Virtual School Report Card will be produced by TCLA, drawing upon all of the reports that participating schools produce. TCLA will identify trends among schools to clarify issues and needs that apply across the metropolitan area of Los Angeles. TCLA and its contributors will ask local and state officials who should be responsible for ensuring quality in these specific areas. Some groups, mostly those who have contributed to TCLA in previous years, are already familiar with and ready to begin work on collecting information. Further, they are familiar with the ways to represent this information on the Internet—including graphs, maps, short essays, stories, pictures, photographs, audio-taped interviews, and brief video documentaries. Other groups, especially those just getting started with TCLA, may begin at any time.

How can this project improve school conditions?
The Virtual School Report Card project encourages partnerships between students, parents, teachers, and administrators committed to ensuring quality conditions at their schools. It focuses attention on the central issue of school improvement—the opportunity for all students to learn and achieve. It enables members of each school community to identify areas of need that require new resources. It fosters a more informed, involved, and committed public, ready to advocate for local and state action that will insure quality schooling for all.

How does the Virtual School Report Card series promote student learning?
The Virtual School Report Card invites students at all grades to explore the learning conditions at their schools. TCLA provides teachers with readings and lesson ideas to guide student examinations. These teacher-guided, systematic investigations provide students with research and analytic tools that will serve them well for gaining access to higher education and for contributing to their communities. Specifically, students will learn to access information from the Internet about school conditions, conduct surveys and rubric-guided interviews, analyze statistics, and write about their findings.

How can parents participate?
Groups of parents can investigate and report on the conditions in their schools. TCLA offers parent groups readings, tools to access information about school conditions on the Internet, and strategies for examining their own schools. Parents will acquire the information and skills they need to talk to education officials, and act on behalf of all students in their communities.

How can I get started on this project?
TCLA encourages classrooms, youth groups, parent groups, and community organizations to participate in the Virtual Report Card process. Please contact us at tcla@gseis.ucla.edu to let us know that you will be participating so that we can send you regular updates on readings and resources. Classroom teachers, youth leaders, or parents may wish to contact their principal or other site administrator to let them know about their participation in this important project. Click here to download letters from TCLA to school principals.

Here is the publications Calendar for TCLA’s Virtual School Report Card Series: