Rocketship Schools Named Top Bay Area Public Schools for Underserved Students

by Beyond Editorial Team

The accolades keep rolling in for our Rocketeers! In the fall, Innovate Public Schools released their 2016 report titled “Top Bay Area Public Schools for Underserved Students.” Their findings show that for the third year in a row, the majority of Rocketship schools made their lists for top schools closing the achievement gap. Six Rocketship schools in San Jose made at least one list of top schools getting results for low-income Latino or African-American students. In math results for low-income Latino students, six Rocketship schools made the list of the top 18 schools, the most of any district or charter management organization. We are so proud of our Rocketeers who are beating the odds and getting on the path to college and career. This report is just one of many testaments to the results our Rocketeers achieve through their hard work and dedication.

The report looks at how schools in the Bay Area perform on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) with low-income African-American and Latino students. While Bay Area schools routinely outperform the rest of the state, Innovate finds that low-income students in the region lag behind other California students, widening an already large statewide achievement gap. The report looks at schools whose low-income students match or better the proficiency rates of the California state average. Out of 568 schools that serve a large population of low-income students in five Bay Area counties, only 41 schools made the cut, down from 54 last year. However, only 26 of these 41 schools included in the report are elementary schools.

Yet six of these 26 are Rocketship schools:

Rocketship Discovery Prep is a top school for helping low-income Latino students excel in English Language Arts,
Rocketship Alma Academy, Rocketship Spark Academy, Rocketship Mosaic Elementary, Rocketship Discovery Prep, Rocketship Si Se Puede Academy, and Rocketship Mateo Sheedy Elementary are top schools for helping Low-income Latino students excel in math,
Rocketship Mateo Sheedy Elementary is a top school for helping low-income African-American students excel in English.

This amazing recognition comes on the heels of the release of our 2015-16 California state assessment, which showed that Rocketship’s Bay Area network of 10 schools ranked in the top 10% in both math and English Language Arts among all elementary school districts serving a similar student population across the entire state.

Congratulations to all of our students, families, and staff for their dedication to closing the achievement gap and showing that demographics do not define destiny. We are so proud that our model of personalized learning, dedicated teachers, and engaged parents is putting our Rocketeers on the path to college.

The results of this report only underscore our belief that every student has unique learning needs that can be met by matching each student with the right content at the right time utilizing the right method of instruction. Our teachers lead the learning process for every single student we serve. We use tutors and adaptive online learning programs to augment teacher-led instruction and provide valuable time for students to practice new concepts and develop the mastery they need to advance. And by partnering closely with our Rocketeers’ parents at the first point of their child’s entry into education, we help our parents become lifelong advocates for both their child’s education and the greater needs of their community. We can eliminate the achievement gap in our lifetime.

Published on January 25, 2017