According to Amador County Unified School District Asst. Superintendent in Charge of Curriculum, Elizabeth Chapin Pinotti,  Amador County is one of only about four counties left in the State of California with no Program Improvement (PI) schools.  She says that this is quite an accomplishment in today’s world of high academic content standards and ever increasing accountability.  The overall district API is 753. The State goal is 100% proficiency by 2014, however an API of 800 is the current statewide performance target.  A number of factors contribute to the rise and fall of API scores including an increase in the number of English Learner students.  Also, with relatively small student populations in some of our schools – just a handful of students slipping from proficient back to basic can create a significant drop in scores says Pinotti.

In analyzing the data, it is becomes apparent that the trends in Amador County mirror statewide trends concerning English Learners. As individual schools EL populations increase - -their APIs decrease due to the difficulty students who are not fluent in English have taking tests that are difficult and in a foreign language – here English.  As an example, last year alone, both Jackson Elementary and Ione Elementary saw their EL population double and the increase in English Learner students at Plymouth Elementary has over 20% of their current student population not fluent in English. When EL students are factored out of test scores all three schools show improved scores. This likewise demonstrates the dramatic need to address the educational needs of this subgroup of students, says Pinotti. In anticipation of this trend, Amador County Office of Ed and ACUSD launched a large campaign this summer and continuing this year to train/re-train all of our teachers in the Universal Access portion of our textbook series, as well as several other programs.  AYP scores are a lesser known portion of the state accountable system is the AYP.  AYP criteria encompass four areas: participation rate in STAR test, percent of students hitting the proficient mark (also referred to as Annual Measurable Objectives or AMOs), API as an additional indicator for AYP, and high school graduation rates. Each of these four areas has specific requirements. Participation rate and percent proficient criteria must be met in both English-language arts (ELA) and in mathematics. Basically, the API is used to meet part of the federal AYP requirements under NCLB. The federal API requirements differ from the state API requirements. A school, LEA, or the state must have a minimum API of 590 OR have at least one point growth in the API in addition to meeting the other federal AYP targets (participation rate, percent proficient, and graduation rate) in order to make AYP for 2007. Every school within the Amador County Unified School District met their 2007 AYPs except Plymouth Elementary School – again largely due the EL population growth.  Criteria met on this test is as or more important than the single digit API number.