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.