The California School Dashboard is an online tool that shows how local educational agencies and schools are performing on the state and local indicators included in California's school accountability system. The Dashboard is a key part of major shifts in California K-12 schools, changes that have raised the bar for student learning, transformed testing and placed the focus on equity for all students. The Dashboard provides information that schools can use to improve.

The Dashboard is made up of easy-to-use reports that show local educational agency or school performance on six state indicators and five local indicators (seven for county offices of education). Users can search to see the reports for any local educational agency or school.

Local educational agencies (LEAs) are defined in state law as school districts, county offices of education, and charter schools.

All LEAs and traditional schools, including charter schools, will receive accountability results reported within their Dashboard.

The 2018 Dashboard displays reports for alternative schools that are approved under the "Dashboard Alternative Schools Status" (DASS). However, in order to fairly evaluate the performance and progress of DASS schools and the impact that they have on their students, modified methods are being developed to calculate select indicators. For the 2018 Dashboard, modified methods have been approved for the Graduation Rate Indicator.

Charter Schools will be treated as schools (not local educational agencies) for reporting these two student groups. An n-size of 30 or more is required for Foster Youth and/or Homeless students to receive a performance level (or color).

The Dashboard was created to give parents and the public a better idea of what is happening in our schools and districts and to identify districts and schools that need extra help. The Dashboard is a component of the Local Control Funding Formula law passed in 2013 that significantly changed how California provides funding to public schools and holds local educational agencies accountable for student performance.

The Local Control Funding Formula law required that the State Board of Education adopt a new accountability tool that reflects performance in different priority areas identified in the law. The Dashboard reports performance on the state and local indicators that the State Board of Education included in this new accountability tool.