Nearly 4 in 10 parents say they’re familiar with or know a lot about the California School Dashboard, which grades schools and school districts using multicolored metrics, and those who have visited the website generally like what they’ve seen and found it useful.
That’s an unexpected finding of a poll released Friday of 2,500 registered voters in California, including 595 parents, and runs counter to sharp criticisms of the website by civil rights and student advocacy groups.
The poll was conducted last month by the USC Rossier School of Education and Policy Analysis for California Education, or PACE, a university-affiliated research nonprofit organization. Participants reflect a geographical cross-section of Californians by party affiliation but not ethnicity. Because of lower voter registration, Hispanics, who make up about 40 percent of the population, were 24 percent of the respondents.