School Wise Press

(https://www.schoolwisepress.com)

Based in San Francisco. (800) 247-8443

The Report Card: Report on individual California public schools includes enrollment, class sizes, students per computer, Stanford 9 test scores, student and teacher ethnicity, and teacher credentialing and years of experience.

Much of the information is available free on the state Department of Education’s Web page, but School Wise Press presents the details in more user-friendly fashion, and compares many of the individual school’s statistics with county and state figures.

(School Wise Press is also the company to which visitors to the Times’ “Reading by 9” Web page are linked when they request test scores for California schools.)

The site includes some useful facts the state omits, such as principals’ names, students per teacher at the individual schools, and percentages of students who advance from Limited English Proficiency, or LEP, status to English-proficient status in a given year.

School Wise Press’ reports list 55 facts about elementary and middle schools and 64 facts about high schools.

Room for improvement: No facts available about individual schools’ extracurricular activities, special clubs, awards, etc.

Prices: Compare a county’s schools on 18 data points directly on the Web site for free. Nine- to 12-page school profiles are $6.

Rating: 3 1/2 apples.