Opposition to California’s school ranking system grows
By Louis Freedberg ~ EdSource Extra
Opposition at the highest levels of state government is emerging against the more than decade-old system of ranking California’s schools on a scale of 1 to 10, based on how they score on the state’s Academic Performance Index.
Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, introduced legislation (SB 1458) last week that calls for abolishing the 1 to 10 rankings, along with reforming the Academic Performance Index, or API.
Steinberg noted that schools that over the past decade schools have improved dramatically so that even those which have reached the state target of 800 on the API can still score at the low end of the 1 to 10 scale.
The so-called decile ranking system means that if a school has a 1 rating, its students are