District Continues Achevement Growth

Last week, the California Department of Education released the 2012 Academic Accountability Progress Reports.  The reports usually are released in August, but were delayed this year due to some testing security issues.

When it comes to the much watched API scores, the tests showed great progress for the Berryessa School District.  The district as a whole increase another 12 points this year to 854.  The compares favorably to Santa Clara County's median score of 845, and is 66 points above the state median score of 788.

A very exciting result occurred at Northwood Elementary School, where the API score increased by 21 points, and reached 906.  They are the second school in the district to break the 900 level.  One reason why this is so exciting is that Northwood is a Title I school, and has the district's highest percentage of students qualifying for free and reduced lunch.  This result shows that great teachers, dedicated students, active parents, and strong administrative support can make any school successful.

While the district is showing great growth based on California's criteria, the federal standards are getting harder to meet every year.  This year, in order for a school to have met the criteria for Adequate Yearly Progress, 78.4% of the students must score proficient in English Language Arts and 79% in Math.  Next year, those targets will increase to over 85%.  As a result, out of Berryessa's 13 schools, only Cherrywood and Summerdale met the AYP criteria this year. 

The biggest irony of these measures is that while Northwood made such pheonomenal gains, it fell into Year I of Program Improvement status.  We now have to offer students a choice to transfer to another school.  Of course, they would have to select a school that has a lower API score than Northwood.  A year ago, I wrote about the problems with the punitive nature of the AYP system and why California is trying to get a waiver from its requirements.  No progress has been made on that front.

An important area of focus for schools is how to reduce the achievement gap, which is the difference between various subgroups on their academic results.   In Berryessa, our achievement gap is measured as the difference between a subgroup's test scores and the scores of Asian students.  Over the past two years, the African American achievement gap has decreased by 32 points. For Latino students, the gap has narrowed by 20 points.  For students with disabilities, the achievement gap has been reduced by 34 points.  All this while Asian scores have increased by 22 points.  These are great achievements, but there is still much work to do, as the Latino achievement gap is still 180 points.

Overall, there was a lot of good news for Berryessa in the annual progress reports.  Congratulations to all the teachers, staff, parents, students, and administrators for working hard to improve the academic achievement of our students.