Review of study about school accountability misses the mark

Sacramento Bee 3/11/07

By James S. Lanich

The review of our study of the California school accountability system misses the mark for accuracy and honesty. We proved the state's Academic Performance Index is a failure and should be abandoned. It's confusing, goals for student academic improvement are minimal, and worse, the API hides achievement gaps. Our students are on the losing end.

The defenders of the status quo argue that more money is needed to raise student achievement. The best way is to raise expectations. Instead of meeting minimal API growth targets annually, schools should focus on raising every student's academic achievement to grade-level proficiency. Parents would strongly agree.

Focusing on grade-level proficiency as the minimum standard for success works. The article failed to review the bulk of the report that explained very clearly that the "cavalry" is made up of the high-performing schools throughout the state identified by California Business for Education Excellence, many with large numbers of low-income, minority and English-learner students. These high performers should serve as role models. These schools don't focus on meeting minimal API requirements. Instead they work to ensure every child is reading and doing math at grade level each year.

Here are the problems with the API.

The API improvement asked of schools each year is set way too low. For example, a school with a starting API score of 500 or lower -- there were 425 schools with this API or lower in 2005 -- could successfully meet its minimal growth targets each year, but it would take somewhere between 42 to 53 years for that school to reach an 800 API. That is simply too long. Our children don't have a shelf life.

The API hides achievement gaps. A school's API score is one number that averages the test scores of all students in the school on the statewide standards test. A few students, usually the white and Asian students, raise the average enough so the school meets its API growth targets but, at the same time, that school still often has subgroups of students -- usually poor, ethnic minority students -- stagnating or even declining in academic proficiency.

While API scores rise, six out of 10 students in grades 2 through 11 score below grade-level proficiency in English and math on state tests, while more than seven out of 10 African-American and Latino students score below grade-level. California's school accountability system is an illusion. The focus must be on getting all students to grade-level.

James S. Lanich, president of California Business for Education Excellence, is responding to the Feb. 14 op-ed article "Saving state's weak schools: Where's the cavalry?"