API scores show five-point increase for Poway Unified
By Emily Sorensen
The Academic Performance Index for 2012 was released Thursday and the news is mostly good for the Poway Unified School District, which posted a five-point increase.
The district’s API score went from 887 to 892 over the past year, the 10th consecutive annual increase. All PUSD schools cleared the state’s goal of 800 and 22 of the district’s 36 schools scored over 900.
“I am very pleased to report that the students of PUSD continue to show academic growth and there is continued increase in the number of students achieving the proficient and advanced levels including our two schools in Program Improvement, Valley and Midland Elementary Schools,” said Supt. John Collins in a press release.
The API is based on student results on the California Standards Test given to students grades two through 11 in the spring of each year. The California High School Exit Exam results are also factored into student performance scores. API is also a component of the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requirements and serves as the cornerstone of California’s State Testing, Accountability, and Reporting Program (STAR).
“The commitment and hard work of our teachers, staff, administrators, parents, and our students make these results possible. Our teachers and principals use these test results and other measures to identify specific areas where they can continue to make improvements and capitalize on areas of student growth,” said Collins.
According to the Local Educational Agency (LEA) 2012 Growth API Report, 72 percent of PUSD schools met their 2011-12 growth target, while five schools grew in API but did not meet their target, and an additional five schools either remained the same or declined in API and did not meet the growth target.
This still places PUSD as having a higher rate of growing API and meeting growth targets than the state in general, which had 56 percent of schools grow in API and meet their growth target. Twenty-six percent of state schools not only did not meet their growth target, but either declined or didn’t grow their API scores.
A number of schools saw significant API growth over the past year, with Valley Elementary seeing the most significant growth with 29 points, rising to an API score of 836 from last year’s score of 807. Sunset Hills Elementary also had a good year, gaining 26 points to raise to an API score of 898. Morning Creek Elementary was third in gains, up 18 points from last year’s score of 890 to break the coveted 900 mark with a score of 908. Del Sur Elementary and Stone Ranch Elementary are tied for the schools in the district with the highest API scores, at 960. Del Sur gained 15 points this year to reach 960, while Stone Ranch dropped 3.
PUSD had a number of schools that had their API scores fall. Sundance Elementary lost 19 points this year, lowering its score from 933 to the still very successful 914. Canyon View Elementary dropped 14 points to 926, and Pomerado Elementary fell 11 points, from 881 to 870.
Some PUSD schools had a less successful year, with 10 schools failing to meet their state requirement student groups growth goals and joint school-wide and student groups growth goals. All schools met their school-wide growth goals. Both Pomerado Elementary and Shoal Creek Elementary failed to meet their student groups growth goals, the only elementary schools to do so.
PUSD’s middle and high schools also struggled in meeting their student groups growth goals and joint growth goals, with only two out of six middle schools and one out of five high schools meeting both goals. Mesa Verde Middle School and Oak Valley Middle School both successfully met all their growth goals for the 2011-12 year, and Del Norte High School was the only high school to do so, except for Abraxas Continuation High School.
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Posted by Emily Sorensen
on Oct 12 2012. Filed under Local News, Poway.
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Please note that once again, PUSD schools are compared in this report only to other failing California schools.
Academically, California schools average standing 47th in academics in nationwide testing by the US Department of Education "National Report Card," (math, science, reading and writing), and in the most recent test, Science, California students beat out only one state — Mississippi!
Don't try speaking reason to anyone here. The absolute insistence that Poway is all that and a slice of bread is the only viewpoint allowed. Poway Unified is 445th in the national ranking of school districts. It's easy to look good when you're benchmark is Mississippi.
To both comments above. Do you ever wake up happy?
Dale: I prefer to awaken — accurately! PUSDS is NOT Lake Woebegone, where all children are above average.
do you have a particular problem with my NUMBERS?
We throw all this money at building new schools and teacher salaries – all for the sake of the kids. It is abundantly clear that this isn't at all for the benefit of the kids. We need to study successful schools and programs that are cost effective. Next we need to break the CTA. It's a behemoth that is destroying quality education. When a school district spends 85% of its budget on admin something is dangerously wrong.
Funny how the test scores follow the wealth of a neighborhood! Too bad we all cannot live in North Poway.
Press release is at "http://www.powayusd.com/news/press-releases/2012/pr_10-11-12API2012.pdf" showing all of the numbers. Good to see that Valley has a little bit of breathing room from that 800 number. (836 compared to 807 last year)
Back in the 90s, Massachusetts sprung a 10th grade literacy test on their college graduate teachers — more than 50% FAILED!
There was hell to pay, and the president of Boston University apologized, and increased the academic rigor of his Teacher College.
Massachusetts students now stands in the top five states in every subject. California students stand in the bottom five in every subject — but our teachers are paid in the Top Five among states.
We are not getting value for our money!
How can any reasonable person argue with your logic? Statistics don't lie. I would like someone to produce valid numbers proving we aren't really at the bottom of the list academically. Why aren't parents outraged? Because they are so damn gullible. " Oh we live in the best school district in the county." "Or stop being negative." They're just kidding themselves.
From the US Dept of Education website, "The National results are based on a representative sample of students in public schools, Private schools, Bureau of Indian Education Schools, and Department of Defense Schools."
What does this tell us? The test is NOT taken by all students. The test is NOT taken by strictly public school students. Which begs the question who is being tested in California?
What can I tell you? In my 11 years of teaching in this district, my students have never taken this assessment.
Please quit making blanket statements and ommitting all the facts. Please quit bashing a district where the parents, teachers, and students work hard.
And….
Feel free to step foot into an elementary classroom in our district to see the teaching and learning that is going on. When is the last time you have done that?
Give ALL students nationwide the same assessment, show me the results, and then we can look at statistics. Statistics that are vague in who is being tested and statistics that don't include data from the district you continue to criticize should not be used to pass judgement on our local school district.
And Helen… Our district is not part of the CTA so before we accuse people of not looking at statistics or facts let's make sure the facts we put out there are correct.
I urge each concerned parent to Google, "National Report Card." The numbers are there in every subject, math, science, reading and writing — and the results are from the US Department of Education, spanning more than a decade and covering Fourth and eighth grades.
You can download the results (as I have) in Excel, and sort them. The numbers do not lie, and are from an unimpeachable source, or at least one that has no bias from one state to another.
"Denial" is NOT a river in Africa!
Who is in denial? That quote comes from the website that you continue to push as proof our district is failing. How can you make blanket statements about the performance of a district in relation to the rest of the United States when it has not been assessed? Furthermore, as someone who is concerned about "numbers that don't lie" wouldn't you want an assessment that is given to ALL students nationwide not just a select group whose educational background is unknown (private, DOD, etc.). Seems to me as a man who loves numbers, that you would like to see data that pertains to our district.
If an assessment is given to all students nationwide and our students perform poorly I guarantee our district would accept ownership as would as a teacher. How can we accept a truth that doesn't exist when our students haven't been tested. It isn't biased, it is fact.
And, I am not talking about our CST state test, we already know the standards students are tested on varies from state to state. I am referring to the test used to determine the "National Report Card" and that is where the above mentioned quote came from.