Angelique Flores
Almost every school in the Huntington Beach city and union high school
districts saw increases in their Academic Performance Index scores
released last week.
These standardized test scores rate the performance of schools that
district and county education agencies based on the Stanford 9 test
results using a scale from 200 to 1,000. If a school surpasses the
state's target score of 800, the goal is to improve 5% the next year. If
scores aren't raised, schools could suffer such consequences as having
sanctions imposed on them or being taken over by the state.
The scores for these two school districts were released late this year
because of a format error in the high school district information and
data miscoding for the elementary school district. Scores for the
Fountain Valley and Ocean View school districts were released in October,
Eight of the nine schools reporting in the elementary school district
increased their scores -- all but one of these surpassing their growth
target. Five of these nine schools exceeded the state's target. New
schools such as Huntington Seacliff Elementary will not have their scores
published until Jan. 17 because there are no base scores to determine a
growth yet. According to district calculations, officials estimate the
school's score will be about 844.
"We attribute the growth to the focused attention on student learning,
and analysis of progress through multiple measures," said Lynn Bogart,
director of curriculum and instruction.
Hawes Elementary topped the district with 856. Peterson Elementary,
whose scores hadn't moved much the past three years, had the biggest jump
of 74 points from last year.
The only school that dropped was Smith Elementary, which fell eight
points. Perry Elementary scored the lowest with 628. Though seven points
higher than last year, the school was two points short of meeting the
state's target.
Bogart said that these figures don't accurately show the growth of the
students because of the shift in the two schools' populations since the
fall of 1999. Students from Smith and Perry moved to Huntington Seacliff,
making the target growth of these schools difficult to reach.
"You're comparing different groups of students," Bogart said, adding
that the school had almost a 30% demographic change. "It's difficult to
achieve growth with a whole new set of students."
Another reason for the lower scores is the higher number of
English-learners and socioeconomically disadvantaged students at these
