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These Explanatory
Notes are designed to assist educators and other interested parties in
interpreting the 2001 Academic Performance Index (API) Base Report. The
Explanatory Notes provide details with respect to Academic Performance
Index (API) calculations, growth target calculations, and ranking
procedures beyond the explanations and footnotes that appear on the
report.
The Public
Schools Accountability Act
The API is the centerpiece of the state-wide accountability
system in California public education. The Public Schools Accountability
Act (PSAA) of 1999 (Chapter 3, Statutes of 1999, as amended by Chapter
695, Statutes of 2000 ), requires that the California Department of
Education (CDE) annually calculate APIs for California public schools,
including charter schools, and publish school rankings based on these
APIs. The PSAA also requires the establishment of a minimum five-percent
annual API growth target for each school as well as an overall statewide
API performance target for all schools. A school that meets API growth
targets may be eligible for awards under the following programs:
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The Governor's
Performance Award Program |
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The Certificated Staff
Performance Incentive Act (Chapter 52, Statutes of 1999) |
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State Board of Education (SBE): |
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adopted a 1999
base-year API |
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defined the
five-percent annual API growth target |
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established an interim
statewide API performance target |
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Base and
Growth Reports
The SBE's actions cleared the way for the publication of the 1999
API Base Report in January 2000 and the 1999-2000 API Growth Report in
September 2000. This first cycle of reporting was followed by the 2000
API Base Report in January 2001 and the 2000-2001 API Growth Report in
October 2001. Each annual API reporting cycle includes two reports: a
base report, which appears after the first of the calendar year, and a
growth report, which appears after school starts in the fall. This pair
of reports is based on APIs calculated in exactly the same fashion with
the same indicators but using test results from two different years.
Changes from the 2000 API
(Base)
The 2001 API Base Report reflects the first major change in the
components that make up the API. The 2001 Base API includes results not
only from the Stanford 9 norm-referenced assessment but also from the
California Standards Test in English-Language Arts (CST ELA) of the
Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) Program. The methodology for
integrating results from the CST ELA was approved by the SBE in
September 2001.
Over the next few years results from
other standards tests and the California High School Exit Examination
will be incorporated into the API. Other legally-required indicators,
such as graduation and attendance rates, will be added as they become
available.
Finally, the 2001 Base API marks the
first use of the Scale Calibration Factor (SCF). The SCF is a numerical
constant that is computed by grade span (2-6, 7- 8, and 9-11) and then
added to each school's API according to the school's grade span.
The SCF may be a positive or negative
number. The purpose of the SCF is to enhance the stability and
interpretability of the API by ensuring that the state-wide average API
does not fluctuate solely as the result of adding new API components
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Students
Included in the API
The term "valid test scores" as it appears in
various API reports is synonymous with the number of students with STAR
test results contributing to a school's API. In determining which
norm-referenced test results should be included in the API, the CDE
employed the same pupil exclusion rules used in calculating school-level
STAR results that appear on the Internet at http://star.cde.ca.gov.
| 1. |
A pupil record was excluded if the
Stanford 9 test administration accommodation for the pupil was
more than one grade out of level (e.g., a sixth grader tested
lower than 5th grade or higher than 7th grade). |
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| 2. |
A pupil record was excluded if any of
the following seven test administration accommodations were
marked “yes” for all Stanford 9 content areas: |
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a. Braille
b. Timing/Scheduling
c. Presentation
d. Response
e. Test read aloud
f. Directions translated
g. Bilingual dictionary |
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| 3. |
A particular content area of a record
was excluded if the percentile rank for that content area was
not between 1 and 99. |
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A particular content area of a pupil
record was excluded if the test administration accommodation
for that content area was marked “yes” for any of the
seven reasons under #2 above. |
These rules apply to Stanford 9 results only.
Results from the CST ELA are included in the API regardless of
accommodations. Finally, in order to comply with provisions of the PSAA
regarding student mobility, both Stanford 9 and CST ELA results are
excluded from the API if the pupil first attended the district in the
current year as indicated on the STAR answer document. An exception is
made for a student new to a district who has followed a normal
matriculation pattern.
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Core Elements of the Report
Certain core elements appear through-out the 2001 API Report. They
include:
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STAR 2001 Percent Tested |
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2001 API (Base) |
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2001 Statewide Rank |
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2001 Similar Schools Rank |
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2001-2002 Growth Target |
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2002 API Target |
STAR 2001
Percent Tested
This percentage is calculated by dividing the number of students
tested by the number of students enrolled on the first day of testing in
the grades tested. The total enrollment is adjusted by subtracting the
number of students exempted from testing due to Individualized Education
Program (IEP) statements and the number of students exempted from
testing due to parent/guardian written request. The number is rounded
down to the next whole number (e.g., 94.9=94). The number of students
tested corresponds to the number of STAR student records. The other
elements are derived from the STAR 2001 Apportionment Information
Report.
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2001 API
(Base)
The 2001 API (Base) summarizes a school’s performance on the
2001 STAR. It is on a scale of 200 to 1000. It is based on the
performance of individual pupils on Stanford 9 (all content areas) as
measured through national percentile rankings (NPRs) and on the CST ELA
as measured through performance levels. In some instances, APIs are also
calculated for student sub-groups at a school in order to ascertain
whether the school meets the “comparable improvement” criterion (see
page 6). For details on the
calculation of the 2001 Base API, please consult the following
documents:
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2001 API Base: Integrating the
California Standards Test for English Language Arts |
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Calculating the Academic Performance
Index (January 2002) |
Both of these documents are accessible at: http://www.cde.ca.gov/psaa/api.
For schools with grade configurations that include both grades 6
and 7 or 8 and 9, the API for these schools was the average of the APIs
for the grade configuration segments weighted by the number of pupils
with valid scores in the segments. For example, for a 7-12 school, the
API was the weighted aver-age of the APIs for grades 7-8 and for grades
9-11. This procedure is necessary because the structure of the test
varies between grades 7-8 and 9-11.
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2001
Statewide Rank
All schools that
receive APIs are ranked in deciles by school type based on grade level
of instruction: elementary, middle, and high. A rank of 10 is the
highest and 1 is the lowest. Each decile in each school type contains
10% of all schools of that type. Small schools with asterisked APIs are
not included in determining the cut points for statewide decile ranks;
however, small schools do receive asterisked statewide ranks to indicate
the decile ranks into which their APIs would have fallen if they had
been included in the ranking system. This is done to establish
eligibility for II/USP as well as other API-linked programs.
2001
Similar Schools Rank
All schools that receive non-asterisked APIs are also
ranked in deciles by school type when compared to schools with similar
characteristics. The PSAA specifies these characteristics to be:
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Pupil mobility |
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Pupil ethnicity |
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Pupil socioeconomic status |
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Percentage of teachers who are fully
credentialed |
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Percentage of teachers who hold
emergency credentials |
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Percentage of pupils who are English
language learners |
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Average class size per grade level |
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Whether the schools operate multi-track
year-round educational programs |
To derive these ranks, the CDE employed
standard statistical procedures to generate a School Characteristics
Index (SCI). All legally-required characteristics were considered as
part of these procedures. The characteristics index was then employed in
the following fashion to determine the “similar schools rank” of an
individual school:
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A comparison group for an individual
school was formed by treating that school’s characteristics
index as a median and taking the fifty schools immediately above
and the fifty immediately below based on the SCI. In the event
that the individual school’s characteristics index was in the
top or the bottom fifty of the statewide distribution, that
school’s comparison group became either the top 100 schools
based on the SCI or bottom 100 as appropriate. |
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The 100 schools in the comparison group
were separated into deciles according to the value of their 2001
Base APIs. |
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The API of the individual school was
then compared to the APIs of the schools in its comparison
group. |
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The individual school was assigned the
appropriate decile rank. |
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2001-2002 Growth Target
A school’s growth target is calculated by taking five
percent of the distance between a school’s 2001 API and the interim
statewide performance target of 800. For any school with a 2001 API of
781 to 799, the annual growth target is one point. Any school with an
API of 800 or more must maintain an API of at least 800.
2002
API Target
The API target is the
sum of the 2001 API and the growth target, except for schools with a
2001 API of 800 or more. Targets for small schools with the asterisked
APIs are calculated in the same fashion. The 2001 Base API used to
calculate this target includes the appropriate SCF, which will also be
applied to the school's 2002 Growth API.
Structure
of the Report
| The 2001 API Base Report is
composed of: |
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1. |
County and District Lists of Schools |
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2. |
School Report |
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List of
Schools
This list includes all public schools in a district or county for
which the CDE has calculated an API. The schools are listed
alphabetically by type (elementary, middle, high, and small). Schools
with non-traditional grade configurations, e.g., 7-12, have been placed
into the school type according to standard criteria established by the
CDE. These criteria are available at: http://www.cde.ca.gov/psaa/api.
A sizeable number of public schools do
not appear on the API list of schools. These include:
Alternative and very small schools
participate in the Alternative Schools Accountability Model.
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Schools
on the Lists without APIs
Some schools appear on the list of schools without APIs because
they have had their 2001 Base APIs invalidated. Under regulations
adopted by the SBE, this may have occurred for one of several reasons:
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Adult testing irregularities have
occurred at the school. |
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The API is not representative of the
total pupil population at the school. |
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The rate of students who have been
excused from STAR testing by parent request is equal to or
greater than 10 percent (schools with rates between 10 percent
and 20 percent have had their APIs reevaluated through standard
statistical tests to check the representativeness of the tested
population). |
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The school failed to test a significant
proportion of its students in all content areas. |
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The school has unresolved problems with
STAR demographic data. |
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School
Report
A School Report is generated for each school with API
information on the List of Schools. In addition to the common core
elements, the School Report includes:
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data on subgroups |
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school demographic characteristics |
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Subgroups
The PSAA defines a “numerically significant ethnic or
socioeconomically disadvantaged subgroup” as a subgroup “that
constitutes at least 15 percent of a school’s total pupil population
and consists of at least 30 pupils.” Also, under the law, if a
subgroup defined by ethnicity or socioeconomic disadvantage constitutes
at least 100 pupils, i.e., at least 100 pupils with valid STAR scores,
that subgroup is “numerically significant” and required to
demonstrate comparable improvement, even if it
does not constitute 15 percent of the school population.
These numerical criteria (15 percent and 30
pupils, or 100 pupils) will be computed on the basis of the number of
pupils with valid STAR scores for that subgroup.
The school is
responsible for demonstrating comparable improvement only for those
subgroups that are numerically significant in both 2001 and 2002.
Ethnic/racial subgroups include:
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American Indian or Alaska Native |
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Asian/Asian American |
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Black/African American |
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Filipino/Filipino American |
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Hispanic/Latino |
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Pacific Islander |
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White (not of Hispanic origin) |
According to the definition adopted by
the SBE, the “socioeconomically disadvantaged subgroup” consists of
pupils who meet either one of two criteria:
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Neither of the pupil’s parents has
received a high school diploma |
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The pupil participates in the free or
reduced price lunch program. |
A pupil who is a member of the
socio-economically disadvantaged subgroup is also a member of one of the
racial/ ethnic subgroups. Therefore, it is possible that the total
percentage of students in all numerically significant sub-groups at a
school may exceed 100. By regulation, “comparable improvement”
requires that each numerically significant subgroup must meet or exceed
80 percent of the 2001-2002 schoolwide growth target.
The 2001-2002 subgroup target was
calculated by first multiplying the schoolwide target by .8 and then
rounding the product to the nearest whole number.
There are four minor exceptions to this rule:
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For subgroups within schools with
schoolwide APIs between 781 and 799, i.e., approaching the
statewide interim performance target of 800, the annual growth
target was one point. |
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Regardless of the schoolwide API,
subgroups already at or above 800 have to continue to meet the
state-wide interim performance target of 800. |
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In schools with 2001 APIs of 800 or
more, subgroups with an API of less than 800 have to make growth
of at least one point. |
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In instances where 80 percent of the
schoolwide target results in a sub-group target that would
exceed the distance from the subgroup API to 800, the subgroup
target equals the distance to 800. |
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School
Demographic Characteristics
Along with subgroup data, the School Report includes the
demographic characteristics on which the school characteristics index
for the 2001 API school rankings are based. The data on which the
percentages and rates rest were collected from two sources:
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October 2000 CBEDS data collection
(information on teacher credentials, multi-track year round
participation, and class size) |
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2001 STAR student answer documents
(information on ethnic/racial distribution, parental education
level, participation in free or reduced price lunch program,
school mobility, English language learners) |
Regarding information taken from CBEDS:
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It is possible for one teacher to be in
both the fully-credentialed and emergency-credential categories;
therefore, the total of the percentages for “Fully
credentialed teachers” and “Teachers with emergency
credentials” may exceed 100. |
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Average class sizes were derived from
the enrollment data reported on the Professional Assignment
Information Form (PAIF). |
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“Core academic courses in
departmentalized programs” reflects average class size in the
following subject areas: English, Foreign Languages, Math,
Science, and Social Science. |
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characteristics derived from the STAR student answer document: |
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School mobility is the percentage of
students who first attended the school in the current year,
excluding students enrolled in the lowest grade at a school. It
is used as a back-ground characteristic only. The criterion for
excluding a score from the API calculation is district mobility,
i.e., any student who began continuous enrollment in the
district during the year tested. |
The School Demographic Characteristics
that appear on this report are used in the formation of the similar
schools comparison groups for the similar schools ranking.
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STAR
2001 Participation Information
The School Report also includes the data elements on which
the STAR 2001 Percent Tested (see above) is based. These elements
include:
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Enrollment in grades 2-11 on the first
day of Testing |
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Number of students excused by IEP
statement |
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Number of students excused by parent
written request |
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Number of students tested |
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