API Rankings Turn Schools Upside Down

Despite their lofty scores on a new statewide index, more than 50 Orange County public schools made a poor showing when ranked against other high-performing schools in California.

But even more schools pulled off the reverse: Campuses with students who face financial and language barriers, saddled with poor overall scores, leaped to the top when compared with schools that face similar challenges.

This is the new world of California school rankings, as the state this week unveiled its Academic Performance Index--a formula, based on standardized test results, for measuring school performance and growth.

Under the new system, schools get a raw API score of 200 to 1,000, with a statewide target set at 800. They also receive two rankings of 1 to 10 (with 10 being the best): one for their standing statewide and the second for their status among like schools. A 10 means that a school is among the top 10%; a 1 means it’s in the bottom 10%.

The comparisons of similar schools are meant to be an equalizing tool, since educators teaching impoverished students who are still learning English face a tougher task trying for high scores than teachers in affluent, highly educated areas. The state compared schools by looking at eight factors that affect performance--including how many students move in and out during an academic year, socioeconomic status, language abilities, ethnicity and percentage of fully credentialed teachers--to come up with a peer group of 100 similar schools for each of California’s campuses.

The results have become one of the most controversial parts of the state’s new index, the cornerstone of a $242-million plan to hold schools accountable for student performance. But they also provide some startling contrasts.

“The way they’re collating and trying to aggregate the data--that is the hot topic of the day,” said Pam Ellis, director of program evaluation for Anaheim City School District. There, eight schools ranked below average statewide, but leaped to as high as 10 when compared with other schools where students are poor, highly mobile and learning English.

About a quarter of the Orange County schools included saw at least a five-point difference between their overall rankings and numbers when compared with similar schools.

The majority of those cases involved schools that ranked below average overall but jumped into the top half when compared with similar campuses. That was heartening news for schools that typically suffer from bottom scores--showing, at least theoretically, that they are doing a good job of educating students despite obstacles.

For example, two-thirds of Santa Ana’s schools got a boost from the new rankings. Several scored in the bottom 30% statewide but were among the top scorers among similar schools.

But more than 40% of the schools saw the opposite, slipping from the top half to bottom when measured against like campuses. Five of prestigious Los Alamitos Unified’s eight schools pulled overall rankings of 9 or 10--but fell to 5 or below among similar campuses.

The comparison also is taking a hint of luster off Sunny Hills High School’s reputation.

This high-achieving Fullerton school is known far and wide for its academics. And it earned a 10--the highest ranking--statewide, but only a 4--below average--when compared to other affluent, suburban schools. Indeed, the school’s raw API score fell short of the state’s 800 target as well.

The state Education Department’s director of policy and evaluation, Bill Padia, has already heard a number of complaints from affluent, high-striving schools that are more used to accolades than being “below average.”.

But that’s the nature of ranking, he said. When you compare a bunch of great schools, some will be greater than the others. By definition, some schools that earn a 10 statewide will get a lowly 1 when compared with similar schools, while others will come out on top.

“The affluent schools are the ones who are surprised by this,” Padia said. “It’s a little like sending your top graduates to Stanford. They’re used to being the smartest ones at school, but at Stanford, they find that they’re no longer the smartest ones around.

“Schools that are used to being the best in their district, now they’re compared to the best in the state, and that’s a little bit of a shock,” Padia continued. “. . . That’s not to say they aren’t great schools. They are.”

Sunny Hills Principal Loring Davies does not dispute his campus’ similar schools ranking, although he’s curious about his comparison group. By Davies’ rough calculation, if Sunny Hills is judged a 4 among other 10s, that puts his school in the top 5% or 6% of high schools statewide. Not too shabby.

“The competition is pretty difficult,” Davies said Wednesday. “You’re dealing with University High, Troy High, Beverly Hills High” and selective magnet school programs in the mammoth Los Angeles Unified School District.

Davies sees many possible explanations for why his school didn’t draw a higher ranking. While nearly all his students speak English fluently, many grew up speaking Asian languages and still trip over parts of the language-intensive Stanford 9, which now forms the basis for the API scores.

And his students, who care deeply about performance on their SATs and other tests that will help them get into top colleges, are less concerned about the Stanford 9.

Educators care about the API, though, because the state will reward or penalize schools based in part on the growth in their scores.

Davies expects the current ranking will spur his students and staff, who are competitive to begin with, toward new heights. “It shows that we can always improve,’ he added.

Principal Joan Pettite knows all about challenges.

Only half her students at Francis Scott Key Elementary in Anaheim are constant from one year to the next (although the API only counts scores of students who were in the district the previous year). They attend classes year-round, on different calendar tracks, with different daily starting times, to ease overcrowding. The children of mainly poor, Spanish-speaking immigrants, many Key students can barely read the Stanford 9’s questions.

For that, the school ranked a modest 2 statewide. But a parent education program, extra help for students before and after school, teacher training opportunities and extra help for struggling kids offered during vacations appear to be paying dividends: Key ranked an impressive 9 when contrasted with similar schools.

The numbers help confirm what Key staffers long suspected: When parents get involved and students stick around more than a few months, they really learn.

“When [the rankings] came out in the paper, teachers had to see how we were doing,” Pettite said. “They were very excited today, they walked around beaming and feeling validated. We knew we were on the right track.”

Yet, Pettite still views the similar-schools ranking as nebulous. She’ll feel better about the API when it includes other performance indicators, such as graduation and attendance rates. And she can’t quite figure out why other schools just as good as hers didn’t have as high rankings among similar schools.

To compare similar schools, the state used information provided by the schools in annual reports or on the headings of Stanford 9 tests.

Some educators have been skeptical of the comparisons, though, because lists of similar schools won’t be available in a few months.

Also, some of the data are soft. For example, economic disadvantage is calculated based on the number of children who qualify for free or reduced lunch or those whose parents didn’t get a high school diploma, so it’s possible that a child who doesn’t know his parents’ educational status could be miscounted.

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