Despite showing gains on the principle state index used to gauge
progress in California’s schools, many San Benito County schools
failed to meet federal performance standards and will land on the
federal government’s program improvement list this year.
Hollister – Despite showing gains on the principle state index used to gauge progress in California’s schools, many San Benito County schools failed to meet federal performance standards and will land on the federal government’s program improvement list this year.
“It can be very disheartening,” said North County District Superintendent and Principal Howard Chase. “(The two systems) are like parallel universes.”
Chase and several other local district and county officials have expressed concern about the mixed messages sent by the two accountability systems: The state Academic Performance Index, or API, and the federal Annual Yearly Progress, or AYP.
According to San Benito County Superintendent of Schools Tim Foley, the API paints an accurate portrait of academic performance of California schools because it measures schools based on exactly what they are teaching students: The California state standards. The AYP, he says, fails to do this.
The API measures annual improvement against fixed state standards. Individual school performance targets change every year, based on the previous year’s score, until the school reaches 800 on a scale of 200 to 1,000.
If a school does not meet its growth targets it may be identified for participation in an intervention program.
By contrast, the AYP, a standard born of the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act, measures success based on annual targets in several categories. These targets increase from year to year and all must be met.
By the 2013-2014 school year, 100 percent of students are expected to score at the proficient level or above.
For example, North County School District’s API score showed dramatic improvement this year over last, jumping 32 points from 688 to 720.
Despite these gains, North County failed to meet AYP standards for 2004-2005 because one of the district’s subgroups, English-language learners (ELL) failed to test proficient. Ten other schools in San Benito County also failed to meet AYP standards in 2004-2005.
Once ELL students meet proficiency standards, they are no longer considered ELL and do not count as part of ELL subgroup, according the federal government’s No Child Left Behind Web site. Therefore, only the ELL students who are not proficient are counted toward AYP.
In other words, the pool of students being counted is getting less proficient, while the proficiency standard they are trying to meet is getting higher.
Chase, whose district failed to meet federal AYP standards for the 2004-2005 school year, called the system a “Catch-22.”
“This year, (the federal government) raised the bar on us, in fact they nearly doubled it,” Chase said. “That’s very unfortunate because when you’re working really hard, like we are, it doesn’t show.”
To make matters worse, schools that fail to meet the AYP under No Child Left Behind Act are subject to sanctions, which eventually include allowing parents to pull the children from the under-performing schools if the AYP is missed for several consecutive years.
Part of the problem, according to Foley, is that California is much larger, and more diverse, than many other states.
“The AYP is normed to national standards,” he said. “And we have more English-language learners than states like Connecticut.”
State wide, fewer California schools met federal AYP standards this year than last. According to the California Department of Education, the percentage of schools making AYP fell to 56 percent in 2005 from 65 percent in 2004.
It is also important to note that California has higher academic standards than many other states, State Superintendent of Public Jack O’Connell said last month.
“Under No Child Left Behind, each state defines what it considers a proficient level of performance for its students,” O’Connell said in a press release. “In order to ensure our students are prepared to compete in a global economy, California has set our level for proficiency very high to reflect our world-class curriculum standards, which are some of the most rigorous in the nation.”
California is home to about 1.6 million ELL students – most of whom are native Spanish speakers. It is the largest demographic of ELL students nationwide.
Brett Rowland covers education for the Free Lance. He can be reached at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or br******@fr***********.com
