By Richard Hoegh with Patric Hedlund and Gary Meyer
Report cards for the El Tejon Unified School District’s public schools have arrived, just as school bells have begun to ring to bring students back to classrooms.
On September 4 California Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell released the 2007-08 Accountability Progress Report (APR) for the state’s schools. The APR combines evaluations by state and federal reviews. The state measure is called the Academic Performance Index (API) and the federal measure is called Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP).
School Report Card API Facts
Frazier Park Elementary: average is 756 overall (low-income at 725 and white at 782);
El Tejon School: average is 740 overall (with Hispanics at 678; low-income at 676; and white at 753).
Frazier Mountain High School: 715 overall, (Hispanics at 640; low income 686; white at 739).
Pine Mountain Learning Center: 871 overall (Hispanics N/A; low income N/A; white N/A)
Frazier Mountain Continuation High School: 400 overall (Hispanics N/A; low income N/A; white N/A)
State Measures: Academic Performance Index
The California Public School Accountability Act of 1999 required that each student in each school take standardized tests in English and math. The California Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) scores are used to assess the school’s proficiency in teaching.
The Academic Performance Index (API) represents a school’s overall proficiency in English and math.
The scale for the API ranges from 200 to 1000. The current goal for all public schools is 800 or above.
The average API score for all students in the state of California is 742 for the 2007-08 school year. The target, you’ll remember, is 800 on a scale of 1000.
Reports for local schools show the API for Pine Mountain Learning Center is 871; Frazier Park School is 756; El Tejon School is 740. Frazier Mountain High School scored an API of 715.
O’Connell says that California schools have some significant challenges which affect the API.
Family income level, English language proficiency and ethnicity have been targeted as factors that influence scores on the tests. State statisticians break out the API scores into demographic groups to focus resources on raising certain groups’ scores as a means to raise overall school averages in the state.
Scores of ethnic Hispanics and students from low income families are reported as subgroups along with scores for "white" students.
Statewide, the average API score for white non-Hispanics is 816; for Hispanics it is 683; and for low income students the average is 679.
The demographic break-out numbers and scores for ETUSD, school by school, are illustrated in the graphs on this and the next page.
Federal Measures: AYP- Adequate Yearly Progress
The federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (known as the NCLB) seeks to track Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in all the nation’s schools.
NCLB statisticians use the same STAR test data as the state uses for the API, but students’ test scores are processed differently to define the percentage of students in each school who are achieving at the "proficient" level (or above) each year.
For high schools, the federal NCLB system also considers student exit exam scores and school graduation rates to determine whether the school is meeting adequate yearly progress (AYP) targets.
The federal AYP target goal this year is that roughly 33 to 36 percent of students must be proficient with their grade level’s English and math skills. An approximate 11 percent increase is mandated each following year. These target goals are designed to reach 100 percent student proficiency by the year 2014 in English and math. Nationally, it appears these targets are unlikely to be met.
Evaluation of school learning proficiency includes two elements: at least 95 percent of students must participate in the testing and at least 33 percent of those must test proficient.
The Pine Mountain Learning Center exceeded its targets. Frazier Park and El Tejon Schools each had 95 percent or more participation and exceeded 33 percent proficiency in English and Math.
Frazier Mountain High School met the proficiency requirements but did not have sufficient participation to meet AYP standards.
Speaking about the entire state, O’Connell said, "The results show that our schools are making real progress and that more students are meeting the challenge of higher expectations." He cautioned however that "the achievement gap between students who are white or Asian and their peers who are African American, Hispanic, learning the English language are unacceptably wide."
You can find this data online at the California Department of Education’s www.cde.ca.gov/apr
—ETUSD Superintendent Shelly Mason assisted with this report.
This is part of the September 12, 2008 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.
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