Brown administration looks to diminish influence of API
(Calif.) Move over API. You’re not the top dog for determining school success anymore, the president of the state’s Board of Education said this week.
Instead, if Mike Kirst gets his way, the Academic Performance Index – long the state’s go-to tool for measuring how well schools are performing – will become in the eyes of the public just one component of a much larger, more robust reporting tool already required under the new Local Control Funding Formula.
“In the past the API was the be-all, end-all and now it’s just part of a much bigger system. People need to move beyond the API,” Kirst said in an interview Wednesday.
While the LCFF – ushered through the Legislature by Gov. Jerry Brown last summer – provides additional school funding and gives local governing boards greater control over spending decisions, the law also requires that districts develop Local Control and Accountability Plans that show how the expenditures are being used to meet the eight state priorities, including pupil achievement, parent engagement, school climate and the implementation of state standards and student access to rigorous curriculum.
The API is just one data element among seven currently in the new law that address pupil achievement. There are an additional 16 data elements among the state’s other seven priority areas.
Currently, the API has been suspended for two years to allow for K-12 education’s transition to Common Core State Standards and new, aligned testing. But in the near future parents, policy makers and the media will come to depend on the LCAP instead.
The 2014-15 fiscal year was the first year that districts needed to prepare an LCAP as part of their goal setting and budget processes. Under the system, districts must report many other indicators beyond test scores –student attendance rates, suspensions, middle school dropout rates and test scores for foster youth.
Meanwhile, the state board must adopt by October 2015 a new evaluation rubric to help calibrate the strengths and weaknesses of student improvement plans outlined in the LCAP.
Kirst said work is underway for the new rubric, which might include other performance indicators beyond those already being used in the LCAP. State board staff, working with the education research and services firm WestEd, is in the process of convening education experts and Brown administration looks to diminish influence of API :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet:
