Dear Families,

As many of you might have seen in the paper, each school in California receives what is called an API (Academic Performance Index) score. All of our Mill Valley schools earned scores of over 900, with Edna Maguire receiving 947.

The API is a single number, ranging from a low of 200 to a high of 1000, which reflects a school's performance level, based on the results of statewide testing. Its purpose is to measure the academic performance and growth of schools. The Public Schools Accountability Act (PSAA), a landmark state law passed in 1999, established the API to create a new academic accountability system for K-12 public education in California. The API is calculated by converting a student's performance on statewide assessments across multiple content areas into points on the API scale. These points are then averaged across all students and all tests. The result is the API.

Key features of the API:

• The API is based on an improvement model. It is used to measure the academic growth of a school. The API from one year is compared to the API from the prior year to measure improvement.
  
  
• The API is a cross-sectional look at student achievement. It does not track individual student progress across years but rather compares snapshots of school.
  
  
• The API is used to rank schools. A school is compared to other schools statewide and to 100 other schools that have similar demographic characteristics.
  
  
• The API is currently a school-based requirement only under state law.

This information was obtained from the California Department of Education website.

I hope this helps! I am very proud of our students and teachers for the great work they do every day!

All the Best,
Lisa Zimmer

Posted by Tim Schultz on September 19