School district exceeds state standards
DISTRICT HDQTRS — Local public schools continue making gains on two assessments crucial to evaluating the district’s performance.
The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District released on Thursday last year’s Academic Performance Index (API), showing overall gains for Santa Monica and Malibu public schools.
For the 2004-05 school year, the SMMUSD earned an API of 806, eclipsing the California standard mark of 800 for the first time.
“Our improvement is remarkable for a district that continues to score well above state and county levels,” said John Deasy, superintendent.
Last year marks the third in a row the SMMUSD has enjoyed significant improvement on the API, according to records.
School officials said the API is the cornerstone of the California Public Schools Accountability Act, intended to measure the academic performance and growth of the local public education establishment.
The numeric range for a given district varies between a low of 200 and a high of 1000. The statewide target for all schools is 800.
Deasy said the formula to determine a district’s API score is complicated, but it includes such factors as student achievement on standards-based tests, attendance rates and results from the state’s high school exit exam.
In 2002-03, the SMMUSD received a 780 API score, 20 points short of the state’s goal for the district. Two years ago, the district improved by 10 points to 790. By 2004-05, local schools managed to improve an additional 16 API points, for an 806 rating, exceeding the standard by six points.
The SMMUSD, which is ranked in the top 1 percent of the state’s public school systems, has achieved a level of performance few other districts have, Deasy said. While the district has exceeded the 800 goal, schools statewide continue to struggle. Last year, the average API score for districts in California was 709 — nearly 100 points less than the SMMUSD, records show.
According to Deasy, the state sets a high standard for its schools, but may expect too much from districts which it fails to support adequately to meet the lofty expectations.
The 14 schools within the SMMUSD had an average improvement of 20 points between 2003 and 2005. McKinley Elementary scored the biggest gains, going from 813 API in 2003-04 to 855 API in 2004-05, an increase of 42 points.
Cabrillo Elementary, which fared the worst in the district, dropped one point from 844 API in the 2003-04 school year to 843 in 2004-05.
Seventy percent of the schools are now scoring above the 800 mark, compared to just 32 percent across the state. Four SMMUSD schools — Franklin, Point Dume, Roosevelt and Webster elementaries — scored at or above 900 API.
Santa Monica High School, which received a 741, has improved by 21 points since 2003-04. Overall, Samohi has improved 47 points within the past three years.
Deasy said this was an incredible achievement that reflects the “power of the re-design and smaller learning communities” that are part of the “house system,” which has provided freshman with more one-on-one interaction with teachers.
By redesigning the large campus into smaller, individual ones, Samohi students have higher attendance rates, higher grade-point averages and lower dropout rates; while both students and teachers report being more satisfied with the overall experience, studies show.
In addition to the API results, the SMMUSD has met its annual yearly progress (AYP) required by the No Child Left Behind Act, which included making a percentage needed for student proficiency in the language arts and math, as well as boosting its API by one point.
The API and AYP results will be used throughout the fall as the district plans for staff development, according to one district administrator.
Jacquie Banks, a Santa Monica real estate agent, said the API and AYP results also have broader impacts outside the classroom.
Santa Monica’s continued improvement on API scores would likely be a factor that continues to drive the city’s real estate market.
“People come to Santa Monica primarily because it’s an incorporated city with its own services, but also because of the school system,” Banks said. “I have found people who can well afford private schools want to have their kids in good public schools, such as those in Santa Monica, because they’re not a rarefied atmosphere, offering real world experience.”
“I have found people who can well afford private schools want to have their kids in good public schools, such as those in Santa Monica, because they’re not a rarefied atmosphere, offering real world experience.” — — JACQUIE BANKS Real estate agent, regarding Santa Monica’s public schools
Banks said another factor that distinguishes Santa Monica public schools are the parents who support them.
“It’s also been my experience as a real estate agent that when visiting these schools, parents are very participatory,” Banks said. “They support a varied program that still includes an arts and physical education, more than just the basics.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 1, 2005. Read the original PDF.