By Joy Resmovits, Los Angeles Times
 
For the last 15 years, a number between 200 and 1,000 told parents in California how good their child’s school was.

Up next: They might have to decipher performance through a series of colored boxes.

California is in the process of redefining its system for rating public schools, in a way that is both transparent for parents and more precise than just using test scores. The changes come after the number system, called the Academic Performance Index, was suspendedand as the state tries to satisfy the Every Student Succeeds Act, the federal government’s replacement of No Child Left Behind.

The latest proposal, presented Wednesday at a meeting of the State Board of Education in Sacramento, is “the California Model,” a display of 17 colored boxes that summarizes how a school is doing in such categories as math or career readiness, both in terms of current status and progress over time.

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