Critics Fret Over Flaws in Schools Index

California next week will trot out a system for ranking public schools, but because four of its five measures do not yet exist, educators fear it could backfire and push the state off its course toward higher standards.

Critics say the ranking is flawed because it hinges exclusively, for now, on results of the Stanford 9, a standardized test that measures students’ mastery of basic skills but not of the state’s more exacting academic standards.

The Academic Performance Index is envisioned as a comprehensive measure that, among other things, rates schools on how well students are meeting those tough new standards, which are being phased in. It is one of three components of Gov. Gray Davis’ highly touted effort to hold schools accountable for student achievement.

In its initial outing, however, the API falls well short of that goal. The index will eventually include other key components--attendance rates, graduation rates and results on the high school exit exam, which hasn’t been developed yet--but most of those are years away.

For all the importance the Stanford 9 has assumed in California, it in no way measures students’ mastery of the state’s standards, which are only now filtering into classrooms. Additional Stanford 9 questions that are designed to assess knowledge of the standards are still being tinkered with by the test publisher, Harcourt Educational Measurement. Scores on that so-called augmented portion of the test are expected to be included in the index, but probably not until 2002.

A Shaky Start

The API’s current flimsiness strikes fear in the hearts of many educators, who feel that a ranking could demoralize schools on the low end and encourage teachers to ignore the standards and “teach to the test.”

“Publishing an API based solely on that could serve to lower expectations for our whole school system,” said Bob Wells, executive director of the Assn. of California School Administrators in Sacramento. “That’s the caution if people do latch onto this as a perfect thing.”

Still, Wells and other education observers acknowledge that California must start somewhere to get a handle on school performance. They generally agree that the API is the best option for now.

Invoking the language of software developers, Brian Stecher, a senior social scientist at the Rand Corp., the Santa Monica think tank, said, “I see this as version 1.0. . . . It’s being released rapidly, and we hope future versions will be more refined and more sophisticated.”

The state’s API computations are expected to arrive in school districts’ mail next week and to be posted on the California Department of Education Web site (https://www.cde.ca.gov/psaa) Jan. 25. In that posting, the state will rank 7,000 schools in 10 levels, with the worst schools in the 1%-to-10% “band” and the best in the 90%-to-99% band. Separately, schools will also be ranked against counterparts with similar ethnic and socioeconomic traits, something that educators in low-income, ethnically diverse schools applaud.

As mandated by 1999’s Public School Accountability Act, the API uses a complex formula to arrive at a performance level for each school, on a scale of 200 to 1,000. Designated weights are given to each subject area on the Stanford 9 test. Reflecting the state’s emphasis on literacy, the formula gives extra weight to reading, language arts and spelling in the lower grades.

The state set a statewide performance target of 800, a level that about 12% of the state’s schools already meet, state officials said at a briefing Wednesday in Sacramento. Schools at that level need only to maintain their status to be eligible for various rewards.

At the other end, the lowest-performing schools will be responsible for the greatest amount of improvement. Schools below the 800 mark must show a prescribed level of progress each year.

“I promised that we would judge every school and hold them accountable for improved student performance,” Davis said in a statement Wednesday. “This formula requires all groups to meet their target goals for their schools to earn up to $150 per student to be used any way they want.”

Many districts have been crunching numbers in advance, using the mathematical model that the API advisory panel devised.

As might be expected, trepidation runs higher in districts where schools turned in an overall poor performance on the Stanford 9.

Mary Dalessi, who coordinates research and evaluation for the urban Anaheim Union High School District, knows her schools will not fare well in the overall state ranking.

The index, she knows, will not explain the realities behind their scores: About 30% of students who start Anaheim schools in the fall are not there come spring. About half of Anaheim’s pupils learned English as a second language--and most of them aren’t yet fluent.

“I would say all of us are nervous about the picture that [the API] might present to the public about what our schools look like,” Dalessi said. As other measures get incorporated into the formula in coming years, she added, fewer educators will object.

The truer picture for Dalessi will be the comparison of Anaheim schools to those with similar ethnic and socioeconomic traits. “I can see us having schools ranked low among all schools and near the top of like schools,” she said.

Good News for Some

A world away, administrators in Ventura County’s wealthy Oak Park Unified School District, where about 90% of students are college-bound and parents are deeply involved in education, already know their API verdict: 800-plus at all five schools, above the state goal for all campuses.

“I couldn’t wait,” Supt. Marilyn Lippiatt said. “I put someone to work on it as soon as we got the [API] formula.”

Lippiatt knows the measure is flawed. It glosses over the number of Oak Park students still struggling to reach the national average on standardized tests. Still, she indicated, Oak Park parents will scrutinize the rankings.

“In some ways, it’s validation,” she said. “We work hard to have our students achieve at the level they do. . . . We have a community that places education at a very high premium.”

The API will also be used to reward schools and teachers that meet targets for improvement and show significant progress. And it will identify schools that fail to meet targets and thus face sanctions, ranging from the reassigning of staff to closure or takeover by the state.

In an effort to avoid such extreme measures, the state is already giving extra resources to 430 low-performing schools that volunteered for help.

“Even if a school is way down low in the 300s, it can still be eligible for rewards if they improve,” said William L. Padia, director of the state Department of Education’s office of policy and evaluation. “This whole system is driven by growth, and everyone can share in that.”

Eva Baker, co-director of the federally funded Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing at UCLA, said the index is praiseworthy because it gives schools specific goals for all significant groups of students--not just the highest achievers. Comparisons of schools with similar demographics might inspire educators to share notes.

She is concerned that the ranking formula is too complicated for the average person to understand.

She also wonders whether the public rankings will tempt educators to get higher numbers through cheating or test preparation, as has occurred in other states with high-stakes accountability programs.

Right now, the index doesn’t tell parents and educators anything they don’t know, said Rand’s Stecher. A better indicator will come in the fall, when the API for 2000 is due out and Californians can get a peek at how well schools do in meeting their growth targets.

“The API will be a useful index when it shows you where a school has been and where it’s going,” he said.

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Times staff writer Amy Pyle in Sacramento contributed to this story.