Brown says it's time to abandon API to judge schools' performance
Members of the State Board of Education who favor replacing the three-digit Academic Performance Index with a “dashboard” of measurements highlighting school performance can count on the backing of Gov. Jerry Brown.
The K-12 summary (pages 22-23) of Brown’s proposed 2016-17 state budget, released last week, stated, “The state system should include a concise set of performance measures, rather than a single index.” Brown said the new federal Every Student Succeeds Act creates the opportunity to design a “more accurate picture of school performance and progress” than in the past.
But whether the state should or even can switch, under the new federal law, from a single index like the API to a more complex school improvement system will be a potentially contentious issue this year. Both approaches to accountability, the dashboard with multiple measures – such as test scores, high school graduation rates and an indicator of student readiness for college and jobs – and a single index compiled from a mix of factors, have strong advocates.
The state board is in the process of drafting a new school accountability system and will continue the debate at its meeting on Wednesday (see agenda, Items 1 and 2). A state consultant, attorney Julia Martin, will outline how the state board may have to tailor its concept of school improvement to meet the requirements of the new federal law, which Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed last month as the successor to the No Child Left Behind Act.
The API rates schools and districts on a scale of 200 to 1,000, based on standardized test results. The Legislature established it in 1999. But with the passage of the Local Control Funding Formula and the transition to the Common Core standards in English language arts and math, accompanied by a new set of state tests, the state board suspended calculating the API two years ago. While the board hasn’t yet voted of get rid of it, members, led by President Michael Kirst, appear inclined to.
The Local Control Funding Formula, the school funding and accountability law that Brown proposed and the Legislature adopted in 2013, calls for a Brown says it’s time to abandon API to judge schools’ performance | EdSource: