Answers to your API queries

Mercury News

California schools and districts are held accountable for student performance under a state system known as API, or Academic Performance Index. Here are the answers to some of the most commonly asked questions about the API and its role in promoting school achievement.

Q What are API scores?

A In 1999, the Public Schools Accountability Act established a comprehensive system that uses student test scores to measure how well California schools are performing and whether what they are teaching meets state standards.

The legislation created the Academic Performance Index, which ranks schools based on scores from the state's Standardized Testing and Reporting, or STAR, program and the California High School Exit Exam.

Each year schools receive a ``Base API'' between 200 and 1,000 and a growth target. The statewide goal is to bring scores for all schools to at least 800. Statewide, 31 percent of elementary schools, 20 percent of middle schools and 11 percent of high schools met performance target of 800 in 2005.

Q What's in the report?

A The 2005 API report released Tuesday lists each school's 2005 Base API score, which acts as a starting point and sets the ground rules for how a school's progress will be measured this year. The scores are based on tests that students took in 2004-2005.

It also includes a school's ``growth target'' for 2005-2006. APIs are calculated for the entire school and for significant subgroups, such as poor students, those who are still learning English, and special education students.

Q What if a school is below 800?

A Schools with API scores below the target of 800 are expected to progress each year by 5 percent of the difference between their Base API score and 800.

Q What are ``similar-schools'' rankings?

A For each school, the state calculates the median API base score and the median API growth score for the 99 schools expected to score most similarly on the base API. A dozen demographic variables are evaluated to identify schools with similar educational challenges. These numbers are intended to give parents and teachers an idea of how schools with similar demographics are scoring; however, because of the large sample, differences between the schools are sometimes stark.

3/22/2006, From the Mercury News

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/living/education/14158001.htm