What Is the API?

California’s new Academic Performance Index is the cornerstone of Gov. Gray Davis’ push to hold schools accountable for student performance.

The API includes both a numerical score for each school and rankings of 1 to 10 to show how the school compares with other schools statewide and with schools that are similar.

In this debut year, the API summarizes the performance of 7,000 schools statewide on the 1999 Stanford 9, a standardized basic skills test that was given last spring to about 4.3 million students. The scores will be used to set improvement goals and will form a base for determining whether schools qualify for future rewards or sanctions.

Several years from now, APIs are expected also to encompass tests based on California’s academic standards, a high school exit exam and attendance and graduation rates. For now, the only component in place is results on the Stanford 9.

Readers who want to know how a school in Los Angeles County is faring can use this index as a gauge. Be aware that these are results for overall schools, not for individual grades or students.

Results for all schools and districts in California are available on the World Wide Web at https://www.cde.ca.gov/psaa.

How to read these tables:

* Find the school district. Districts are listed in alphabetical order.

* Search for the individual school. Schools within a district are listed in alphabetical order.

* For each school, the table first lists the 1999 API score, on a scale of 200 to 1,000. The statewide median is 630.

* Next comes a statewide ranking, on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 representing the bottom 10% of schools and 10 the top 10%. All elementary schools are ranked together, as are middle schools and high schools.

* The third column is a second ranking from 1 to 10 comparing the school with a group of 100 schools that are similar in certain regards, such as poverty rate, the number of English language learners, pupil mobility, pupil ethnicity and percentage of teachers with emergency credentials. A school could have a statewide ranking of 4, somewhat below average, but a ranking of 8, well above average, among 100 similar schools.

* The next column lists the target score for the next API, due in late September. A school’s growth target is calculated by taking 5% of the range between a school’s 1999 API and the statewide performance target of 800. That number is then added to the 1999 API to compute the 2000 API target. For schools with a 1999 API of 781 to 799, the annual growth target is 1 point. An asterisk indicates that a school is at or above 800; any school that maintains an API of 800 or higher is eligible for rewards.

* The final column lists the percentage of teachers at the school who have emergency credentials. A high percentage of uncredentialed teachers tends to indicate a weaker, less experienced faculty.