Nine schools in the Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD) made the statewide Honor Roll list recently announced by California Business for Education Excellence. Schools receiving this distinction from California’s business community have demonstrated consistently high academic achievement and have made significant progress toward closing achievement gaps among all of their students. The schools are currently being notified and will receive their recognition banners in the coming days.
The Honor Roll is made up of two different awards: the Star Schools Award (477 schools), and Scholar Schools Award (744 schools). Long Beach has four Star Schools and five Scholar Schools.
“These schools are the bright spots of excellence in efforts to raise student academic achievement and close persistent achievement gaps,” said Kirk Clark, president of CBEE. “By highlighting them, recognizing their achievement and giving them a voice, we hope other schools can learn from these proven practices and we can begin to duplicate their success to scale throughout the state.”
Star Schools are those with significant populations of socio-economically disadvantaged students that have shown a significant increase in grade-level proficiency over four years and are outperforming expectations for every subgroup of students. This year’s Star Schools in LBUSD include Burnett, Lafayette, Longfellow and Mann elementary schools.
Scholar Schools are those that show significant levels of academic achievement but do not have a significant socio-economically disadvantaged student population. This year’s Scholar Schools in LBUSD include Fremont, Gant, Lowell and Naples elementary schools, along with Newcomb K-8 Academy.
The annual awards are supported by numerous businesses and organizations, including State Farm, Macy’s, Edison International, Wells Fargo, Southern California Auto Club, the California Business Roundtable, and United Way of the Bay Area.
The Honor Roll uses individual school and student subgroup performance data based on the California Standards Tests to evaluate school academic performance over time.
“We must change the conversation in public education from being about failure and sanctions to one that focuses on schools and school systems that are getting the kinds of results that Honor Roll schools are achieving,” said Greg Jones, CBEE Chairman. “These schools are overcoming challenges every day.”
CBEE was founded in 1999 by major corporations and business organizations to represent the business community in state education policy making. The organization’s mission is to raise academic achievement and close achievement gaps in California public schools by making certain that every student reaches a minimum of grade-level proficiency.
