The California Dept. of Education released the 2004-05 Academic Performance Index (API) Growth Record. I realize that this is only a measurement-and not something that should be concerned as “the” measurement. But others will be talking about these numbers.

All of the California large urban school district’s scores went up. SFUSD’s scores went up by 21 points from 724 in 2003-04 to 745 in 2004-05. The district with the highest jump in scores was Oakland which went up by 34 points from 601 in 2003-2004 to 635 in 2004-2005; Hayward went up by 27 points from 652 to 679; Fremont went by 16 points from 833 to 817; LA Unified’s scores went up 16 points by 633 to 649; San Jose went up 23 points from 714 to 737; San Diego went up by 16 points from 710 to 726; Fresno went up 20 points from 623 to 642.

With school performances, there was some surprises. The CA Dept. of Education has a column that states “met growth target”, i.e. are the students’ scores improving (and presumably, the bureaucrats are also hoping that the students’ learning experience is now deeper and richer-rather than the students are just learning to take tests better). To have “met growth target,”a school must have a API score of 590 or at least one point increase from 2004 API Base to the 2005 API Growth and they must make comparable progress with other comparable schools.

Lincoln failed both of those tests. Their API score went down from 778 in 2003-04 to 772 in 2004-05. CA Dept. of Education also notes “No” on Comparable Improvement. Small School for Equity also went down from 657 in 2003-04 to 650 in 2004-05 and was also dinged for lack of comparable improvement. George Washington H.S., Gateway High, and Balboa all showed improvements in their scores (Washington-4 points; Gateway-10 points, and Balboa’s score went up 63 points), but all three were also shown as “No” for comparable scores. Galileo’s API score had the largest increase by 69 points-from 674 in 2003-2004 to 743 in 2004-2005. (Editorial comment-way to go, Gal!!)

After Lowell with an API of 946, School of the Arts’ API was the second highest at 802 and then Washington at 781. The school with the lowest scores (other than Newcomer) is Mission at 575-but the state shows that they made acceptable progress and were comparable to other schools due to their increase of 47 points from 03-04 and 04-05.

The scene for middle schools was even more dismal. Seven middle schools (out of 18) were shown by the California Dept. of Education to not have made progress in their API scores and to have scores that were comparable to other schools on a statewide basis. Those schools were: Everett Middle School (drop of 23 points from 586 to 563); Horace Mann (drop of 20 points from 606 to 586); Benjamin Franklin (drop of 7 points from 555 to 548); Gloria Davis (an increase of 2 points from 517 to 519); James Denman (increase of 3 points from 3 points from 687 to 690); MLK (decrease of 1 point from 696 to 695), and Luther Burbank (drop of 2 points from 587 to 585).

The middle school with the highest API scores is Presidio at 851 in 2004-2005 (2 point drop from 849), but the state still rates them as making adequate API growth since they scored at or above the statewide performance target of 800 in 2004. (Two other middle schools are also in that elite crowd-Giannini at 839 and Hoover at 841.) The middle school with the lowest scores is Gloria Davis at 519.

There were 17 elementary schools that noted by the CA Dept. of Education of not making adequate or comparable growth in their API scores. There are two elementary schools from the west side of the city-Cabrillo and Grattan. The remaining are from the east side of the city-Bessie Carmichael, Willie Brown/21st Century, Cobb, El Dorado, Flynn, Hillcrest, Longfellow, Marshall, Miraloma, Muir, Parker, Parks, Swett and Tenderloin. The elementary school with the highest jump was Harvey Milk with 101 points (from 665 to 766) and honorable mentions should be given to Cleveland with a 95 point jump (from 608 to 703) and Sunset with 82 points (751 to 833). The elementary with the largest decline was Rosa Parks with a decline of 46 points (686 to 640). The It will be interesting to see what happens to Rosar Park’s scores now that Golden Gate which had the biggest jump in API scores last year, was basically merged into Rosa Parks. The elementary school with the highest API score was Alice Fong Yu with 922 points-the only score in the 900’s. West Portal is second at 899. The elementary school with the lowest scores was Willie Brown/21st Century at 526.

There were 19 elementary schools with the state’s target of 800 or high scores. They are Alamo (864), Alvarado (812), Argonne (860), John Yehall Chin (863), Clarendon (872), Commodore Sloat (842), Francis Scott Key (812), Garfield (835), Jefferson (862), Lafayette (808), Lakeshore (805), Lawton (877), Lillenthal (868), Moscone (835), Rooftop (818), Sherman (824), Spring Valley (825), Stevenson (881), Sunset (833), Sutro (805), West Portal (899), Yick Wo (849) and Alice Fong Yu (922).

How did the three dream schools fared? Willie Brown Academy’s API scores went down by 12 points (538 to 526) and has the lowest API scores of the elementary schools. As mentioned earlier, the state noted that it did not make adequate progress schoolwide nor with comparable schools. Charles Drew’s API score went up by 26 points from 588 to 614. As mentioned earlier, Gloria Davis Middle School’s API scores went up by 2 points from 517 and 519 with the state still stating that it did not make adequate progress schoolwide and with comparable schools.