Bay Area school districts not only poorly serve their minority and low-income students, they also do worse in general than their Southern California counterparts, according to a report released by an education advocacy group Thursday.
Of the 147 unified school districts that were ranked, vaunted Palo Alto Unified scored next to last, earning a grade-point average of 1.0 -- a D. The report did not award any A's.
Palo Alto's barely passing grade was one of many startling findings in the 2011 California District Report Cards put out by the Oakland-based Education Trust-West. The report evaluated seven criteria on how well districts are educating poor, African-American and Latino students. For the sake of making accurate comparisons, the report focused only on about 15 percent of school districts in the state, those that serve kindergarten through 12th grades. Among the report's findings:
  • In the Bay Area, San Ramon Valley scored the highest, a C-plus.

  • Besides San Ramon, only Castro Valley, Gilroy and South San Francisco scored at least a C, all slightly better