Time to Reassess California’s API

Time to Reassess California’s API:

Time to Reassess California’s API

by Mandy Zatynski

As a reporter for a small-town paper in California, I dreaded August. It was the month that the state department of education released its annual Academic Performance Index (API) rankings. Teachers, administrators, parents, and realtors live and die by the API, a somewhat ambiguous figure based on a complicated math formula that considers students’ proficiency levels on state tests. As a reporter, I felt it never told us, or the public, very much about a school’s progress over time.
But as Richard Lee Colvin writes in his new report, California has the perfect opportunity to scrap this vague measure for a more thorough—and fairer—judgment of a school’s performance. And it’s an opportunity other states should watch and take note of.
Currently, the API tends to say more about a school’s socio-economic makeup than its student achievement. For example, a school with a high percentage of English-language learners will undoubtedly have a low