Newport-Mesa ahead of state on API targets
Deirdre Newman
The Academic Performance Index Growth Report for 2001-02, released
Thursday, brought the school district a mixed bag of results.
While some schools exploded in growth, others saw double-digit
declines, including all four of the main high schools.
College Park Elementary School in Costa Mesa and Middle College
High School at Orange Coast College were the district’s shining
stars, showing stellar growth of 80-plus points.
The negative growth at 10 of the Newport-Mesa Unified schools may
be due to this being the first year that results from the state’s
English/Language Arts standards test were used in the growth
calculations, said Peggy Anatol, the district’s director of
assessment. In the past, the Academic Performance Index has been
solely based on the Stanford-9 Achievement Test.
“California has set the bar very high for the accomplishment of
the state standards,” Anatol said. “When you get to a high school
that has [a lot] of kids, it gets very difficult to ensure that they
are all receiving the state standards at the same time at a high
level.”
The Stanford-9 test, taken last spring, covers language arts and
math. The English/Language Arts Standards test was also taken last
spring.
The API, a numeric index ranging from 200 to 1,000, is the
foundation of the statewide accountability system. The score is
calculated from the test results of all the students at a school. The
statewide target is 800. The scores will be converted into statewide
rankings in the next few months.
The district as a whole made a strong showing, with 62% of its
schools meeting all targets, which include school-wide scores and
scores by subgroups of ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Only 53%
of all schools statewide met their targets.
Eleven district schools exhibited enough growth in all areas to be
eligible for awards through the Governor’s Performance Award program,
which has no money invested in it this year because of the state
budget shortfall. Eligible schools, however, may receive the cash
awards if the money becomes available next year, state Supt. Delaine
Eastin said.
College Park outshined all other elementary schools in the
district, exceeding its target growth by 75 points. Its target growth
was 9 points over last year’s score of 627, but its score this year
jumped 84 points, to 711.
Principal Carol Lang said she was excited by the results and
attributed the phenomenal growth to her teachers’ commitment to
excellence and dedication past regular school hours.
Last year, College Park teachers participated in CORE --
Consortium on Reading Excellence -- to help them improve their skills
in reading instruction based on the state standards. The
administration scheduled time for them to work and plan lessons
together.
The staff also wrote their own benchmark assessments -- for
reading and for math -- and gave them to students every six to eight
weeks so teachers didn’t have to wait until the end of the year to
see how much their students had mastered and where they needed help.
The school also benefited from its status as an under-performing
school, getting grant money from the state and from an anonymous
donor to hire a teacher on special assignment and a reading/English
Language Development teacher to support the staff.
“Educational research shows that one of the most powerful factors
in increasing student achievement is what goes on in the classroom,
like teachers and students working together, so we’ve crafted
everything now that’s going on in the classroom,” Lang said.
This year’s score for Whittier Elementary School in Costa Mesa
dropped by 17 points from last year’s. Between 2000 and 2001, the
school’s score improved by 54 points.
After examining the data, Principal Sharon Blakely said the
students who have been at the school for two consecutive years have
shown significant growth.
“That tells us that our program is strong,” Blakely said. “We look
carefully at all measures including the improvement in language,
which is significant at Whittier ....We take in our new students who
don’t speak English and work with them as quickly as we can.”
The district’s two middle schools both showed growth, although
Ensign Intermediate’s score only grew by 2 points, while its target
was 3. TeWinkle Middle School’s score increased by 21 points.
Trustee Martha Fluor attributes some of TeWinkle’s growth to the
placement of Julie Chan, the district director of literary
instruction, at the school last year. This year, the district will be
moving Chan over to Ensign Intermediate and Costa Mesa High School,
Fluor said.
At the high school level, Estancia High School in Costa Mesa
dropped the farthest, falling by 26 points.
Supt. Robert Barbot said there were two likely reasons why the
four main high schools did not show an increase in growth. One is
that the district’s priority for the past two years has been the exit
exam, which is supposed to be a graduation requirement starting with
the class of 2004. The other is that the district’s emphasis on
standards started at the elementary level and is just now reaching
the high schools, Barbot said.
“Our focus is, if we got to where we generally wanted in movement
for K through 6, and we did -- those kids are moving forward
aggressively -- our next focus is to focus on how our kids perform at
the 7-12 level,” Barbot said. “We believe with what we just saw
happen with the exit exam, if we can transition that to [the API], we
expect a major jump in the next year.”
Fluor echoed those sentiments.
“I’m disappointed that we didn’t show growth [at the high school
level], but I know that it’s an area of concern for all of us, and we
just keep pressing on,” Fluor said.
The district will continue the ongoing process of aligning its
standards with the state’s, including this year’s rollout of
standards-based report cards and a new standards-based assessment
system, Anatol said.
“It’s a honing of the standards so that every student has access
to all of the standards in every classroom,” Anatol said. “We don’t
want everyone to be the same because [every teacher] has a style and
strategy to get students to the end product. But where we are all
going is how important it is to clarify those standards with kids and
parents.”
Next year, the Academic Performance Index will be comprised of
different criteria -- the CAT-6 will replace the Stanford-9, and the
state math standards test will also be included.
* DEIRDRE NEWMAN covers education. She may be reached at (949)
574-4221 or by e-mail at deirdre.newman@latimes.com.
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