Edison Elementary Continues to Defy the Odds

This post has been updated.

Introducing Voice of San Diego’s Acorn Awards: This week are giving out a new set of recognitions to highlight schools that outperform expectations on a metric comparing student income to test scores, which we developed in partnership with UC San Diego Extended Studies Center for Research and Evaluation.

If Edison Elementary School followed what statewide testing statistics predict, its students would be struggling academically. Instead, this City Heights school is defying the odds. 

Half of Edison Elementary’s students are English-language learners and more than 95 percent qualify for free and reduced-priced meals, which means they live in a low-income household.

While their English language arts (ELA) and math scores aren’t soaring, they perform far better than those circumstances would suggest.  

We partnered with UC San Diego Extended Studies Center for Research and Evaluation to create a income vs. test score metric for our annual A Parent’s Guide to San Diego Schools. 

This figure compares projected test scores based on a school’s percentage of students who qualify for free and reduced-price meals and compares it to the school’s current ELA and math scores. Schools with scores of “0” on the metric are performing exactly as expected for their income bracket, while schools in the negative are performing worse than their poverty level average and schools above “0” are performing better.  

Edison Elementary has an income vs. test score ratio of nearly 79.  That means Edison is far exceeding what one would expect for the average income level of students’ families. 

For the inaugural Acorn Awards, Voice is recognizing Edison Elementary School as the best performing San Diego County school with a disproportionate percentage of English learners. 

A 2024 survey by the California Department of Education found that English learners had very low test scores in English/literacy and mathematics. Only a little over 10 percent met or exceeded standards in those areas. Those students are also more prone to missing school at a higher rate than other students and lower graduation rates.  

A little over 25 percent of Edison Elementary students are chronically absent, meaning they miss at least 10 percent of days in a school year. Yet, overall, students have continually performed better than state averages on standardized tests. 

Jamie Lee, principal of Edison Elementary, says the secret ingredient lies in how closely connected the people of Edison are.  

Teachers at Edison tend to stay at Edison. The average duration of teachers at the school is over 20 years, Lee said. 

 “They have grown up with each other, collaborate with one another,” Lee said.  

Edison’s success in teaching diverse students also partially lies in their ability to hire diverse staff.  

“We have such richness in multilingualism among our staff and multiculturalism,”  Lee said. “Our teachers are of all different walks of life.” 

Edison also operates on a one-way developmental biliteracy program, a method that gradually increases teaching in both languages to even out fluency in students.  

“That makes such a big difference in the connections to families, in the language pedagogy understanding, building vocabulary, understanding cognates,” Lee said.  

Lee describes Edison’s approach as highly strategic. “It’s very targeted and it’s very intentional,” Lee said. She says the work at Edison is data driven, and when looking at Lee’s office, it’s apparent. 

The first sight when looking up from her desk is a wall of student test scores and other data printed out and taped up in neat rows.  

A newer addition to Edison, resource teacher Elana Resh, uses that data to assess student’s needs and their strengths.  

She does specialized warm ups with higher grade level students while a separate reading specialist works with the younger students. Resh’s work includes tackling speech function, image description, vocalizing opinions and reasoning and going over what is to be expected for state mandated testing.  

Not every school has an Elana Resh who is able to administer specialized instruction, but Resh believes the credit goes to the students.  

“They are just so nice, motivated and willing to be here and learn,” Resh said. “That really comes from the readiness of their parents.”  

Teachers like Resh are in active communication with the parents of Edison and believe in the idea of school readiness starting at home.  

“You need the parents to be on board,” Resh said. “Get their kids to school, get their kids fed, reading at night.”  

In addition to the learning process starting at home, Resh believes Edison’s success begins from the top down.  

“Students are often drawn to the teacher of the content—more than the content,” Lee said.  

The post Edison Elementary Continues to Defy the Odds appeared first on Voice of San Diego.