A question for parents: To fight or to flight?

[krz]

I don't live in California or have children nor am I familiar with the API system. I assume it's a measure of academic performance based on standardized testing.

But, am I interpreting this correctly?

http://api.cde.ca.gov/Acnt2012/2011BaseStAPI.aspx

The socioeconomically disadvantaged score better than African Americans? and score closely with a few other groups? At least in California on a whole.

[soyizgood]

Originally Posted by krz

I don't live in California or have children nor am I familiar with the API system. I assume it's a measure of academic performance based on standardized testing.

But, am I interpreting this correctly?

http://api.cde.ca.gov/Acnt2012/2011BaseStAPI.aspx

The socioeconomically disadvantaged score better than African Americans? and score closely with a few other groups? At least in California on a whole.

An API score of 800 is the base score for the schools to attempt to achieve. Schools that score below it could either be put on NCLB list of under-performing schools or could be subject to that list if the score doesn't improve consistently. The principal of Palms Elementary said 2/3 of LAUSD schools fall under NCLB, including his. The school by me also falls under NCLB or "Program Improvement". My concern isn't so much that the home school falls under NCLB. I just don't like that this school bends over backwards to appease the 84% Hispanic demographic while leaving Blacks significantly behind and the others possibly marginalized.

LAUSD has school report cards, http://notebook.lausd.net/portal/pag..._schema=PTL_EP. http://www.greatschools.org has details on schools and the API as well as CST results for various grade levels.

My home school's report card: here. Compare that to the school on the other side of my zip code: Here.

Not to mention English learners also outscored Blacks on your link. SMH... in fact Blacks score the lowest in the state. But you can see from my links that if they are put in a good school they perform comparably near the top.

It's class warfare when it comes to educating children. If you're poor, you have to go through many obstacles to get a quality education for your kids.

[krz]

Originally Posted by soyizgood

An API score of 800 is the base score for the schools to attempt to achieve. Schools that score below it could either be put on NCLB list of under-performing schools or could be subject to that list if the score doesn't improve consistently. The principal of Palms Elementary said 2/3 of LAUSD schools fall under NCLB, including his. The school by me also falls under NCLB or "Program Improvement". My concern isn't so much that the home school falls under NCLB. I just don't like that this school bends over backwards to appease the 84% Hispanic demographic while leaving Blacks significantly behind and the others possibly marginalized.

LAUSD has school report cards, http://notebook.lausd.net/portal/pag..._schema=PTL_EP. http://www.greatschools.org has details on schools and the API as well as CST results for various grade levels.

My home school's report card: here. Compare that to the school on the other side of my zip code: Here.

Not to mention English learners also outscored Blacks on your link. SMH... in fact Blacks score the lowest in the state. But you can see from my links that if they are put in a good school they perform comparably near the top.

It's class warfare when it comes to educating children. If you're poor, you have to go through many obstacles to get a quality education for your kids.

I believe the link I posted is an aggregate for the whole of California.

I just found it odd that the API for the socioeconomically disadvantaged/English learners was more or less on par with everybody else minus whites, asians, and filipinos.

Wouldn't that suggest that being poor isn't a big obstacle? Especially in cases where the poor are actually managing to score better. Or am I not understanding how API works?

[soyizgood]

Originally Posted by krz

I believe the link I posted is an aggregate for the whole of California.

I just found it odd that the API for the socioeconomically disadvantaged/English learners was more or less on par with everybody else minus whites, asians, and filipinos.

Wouldn't that suggest that being poor isn't a big obstacle? Especially in cases where the poor are actually managing to score better. Or am I not understanding how API works?

API is a formula that combines results of student's test result. Students in grades 2-5 have CST tests in English, math, and in science for 4th and 5th grade iirc. I'm still a noob trying to figure out how API works. All I know it is one of a number of measures California uses to measure student performance as well as a factor in poor performing schools getting the dreaded "Title I" label.

The way I look at it, schools with low expectations of poor students tend to produce low API scored for them.

At Shenandoah Street, just about the entire student body is classified as poor. While the school has steadily improved the past 5 years, I don't feel there is a strong will among the administrators to get the kids motivated and to strive for better. I've talked with the principal in which I was the only prospective parent that attended her hastily arranged tour (originally there was no planned tour until the first day of classes). The school scores low marks on dealing with bullying, cleanliness of bathrooms, and graffiti.
API - 758
Poor kids - 755

Meanwhile at Clover Avenue, being poor won't cut it as an excuse not to perform well. The administration is top notch, the teachers I've seen there make learning a challenge, but fun and rewarding at the same time. 2/3 of the students are children of UCLA graduate students, 1/3 are classified as gifted. Yet the results indicate this school is motivated to get all the students to learn and perform. To be fair, Clover doesn't get great marks for their bathrooms, either. That and 50% parents marked "Don't Know" if the school has translation and interpretation services readily available.
API - 955
Poor kids API - 914

API doesn't tell the whole story. But then what does? LAUSD also has Survey Reports which get feedback from students, parents, and faculty.

Shenandoah Street
Clover Avenue

Back on the API for the poor, you have to realize that Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, and English learners are generally classified as poor. Or at least high percentages of their respective populations are. So it really shouldn't be a surprise that the poor's API was comparable to that of the Hispanics, English learners, Native Americans, and Blacks. Furthermore, the poor don't really have access to the better schools, excluding magnets (can only apply to one of them and often time you have to try at least twice to get in), open enrollment (not sure how that process works), and petitioning to move child out of a NCLB school (to where since 2/3 of the schools are NCLB?).

To make it even more unfair, school districts sometimes draw lines that keep poor and minorities sheltered and isolated from the better schools that have heavy Caucasian and Asian populations. Shenandoah St is a perfect example in that the students are funneled to a poor performing middle school in Mark Twain (further west of the much better Palms Middle School), while Charnock, Palms, Clover, Canfield, and Castle Heights students get to go to Palms Middle School's attendance zone. Mark Twain is nowhere close to Shenandoah Street and you have to basically pass through Palms Middle School to get there anyway. Robertson Blvd. is the psychological barrier for those living in 90034. Live east of it and your kids get treated like you are part of Mid-City and forced into Shenandoah Street Elementary and Mark Twain Middle School.

Palms API 857, poor kids 816
Mark Twain 703, poor kids 703

[soyizgood]

Being a statistics junkie, I came up with another theory involving the test scores of Black children in California. If they are in environments where they are encouraged and expected to perform, they in fact tend to do so. But in places where there is little emphasis and/or encouragement on performing in class (which I suspect is quite the majority in LAUSD), they just don't. I guess you can argue the same is true for Hispanic children, but because they make up almost 50% of the students they get additional resources for assistance and development.

Back to my mini-tirade over the API at my home school and the zip code....

School, overall API, Black, Hispanic

Home school 758, B 673, H 763 (84% H, 11% B)
School PE 769, B 786, H 748 (60% H, 18% B)
School CH 903, B 883 , H 842 (34% H, 15% B)
School CR 784, B 791, H 755 (58% H, 15% B)
School CL 955, B 933, H 894 (16% H, 8% B)

Schools with the highest concentration of Hispanics and Blacks scored the lowest while the schools with the lowest concentration scored the highest. Blacks scored 90 points less than the Hispanics at the home school (nevermind that 60% of the Hispanics there are English language learners), but they also outscored Hispanics by 36-41 points at the other four schools. In fact, Blacks scored above the school average at two of the schools and were only 20-22 points below the average at the two best schools.

School CH's scores are a bit odd. Whites scored 958 which is fantastic. But Blacks OUTSCORED the Asians 883 to 854?!?!?! Hispanics almost matched the Asians scoring 842. I could never imagine seeing such a result... In fact, I think Asians did worse at school CH than at any of the other schools (977 at CL, 898 at PE, 878 at CR, ~861* at home school). At school PE, Blacks outscored the Whites 786 to 778 (Whites scored 974 at CL, 958 at CH, 879 at CR, ~861* at home school). ~861 reflects I don't have scores for Asians and Whites at home school since they aren't available, but I estimated their API bundling them together as others and playing with math.

Not every zip code is going to have two state distinguished school award recipients like mine in schools CL and CH. Nor is it going to have a really big performance gap like the home school's. I've had parents tell me that the scores are very important to not important at all. I'm going to have to make some tough decisions before my fiancee and her son come here. I just hope they're worth it and that they appreciate my concerns.