California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) Score Report

The California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) System is California's new statewide student academic assessment system.

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On January 1, 2014, California Education Code Section 60640 established the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) System of assessments to replace the Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) Program, which became inoperative on July 1, 2013.

One good way to get a better feel for how to interpret the test results is to look at a couple examples of actual test results.

The areas for English Language Arts/Literacy (ELA) include:  

• Reading: How well does your child understand stories and information that he or she reads?
• Writing: How well does your child communicate in writing? 
• Listening: How well does your child understand spoken information? 
• Research/Inquiry: How well can your child find and present information about a topic? 

The areas for mathematics include: 

• Concepts & Procedures: How well does your child use mathematical rules and ideas? 
• Problem Solving and Modeling & Data Analysis: How well can your child show and apply problem-solving skills? 
• Communicating Reasoning: How well can your child think logically and express thoughts in order to solve a problem?

These areas are based on the standards, which describe what your child should know and be able to do relative to the overall Standard Met achievement level for his or her grade. These results by area are most useful to identify skills where your child is performing particularly well (Above Standard) or where your child is struggling and needs help to improve (Below Standard). If your child received a “No score,” it means he or she did not complete enough questions to receive a score in that area.

There are four levels of scores for ELA and mathematics for each grade. Achievement levels “Standard Met” and “Standard Exceeded” are the state targets for all students.

Score ranges for each achievement level are different for each grade, and the standards for the next grade are higher than for the previous grade. As a result, students may need a higher score to stay in the same achievement level as the previous year.

Go to http://testscoreguide.org/ca/ for more information, including the Parent Guide to the Smarter Balanced Summative Assessments with sample test items.

For complete results for schools, districts, or across the state, visit the CDE CAASPP Results Web site at http://caaspp.cde.ca.gov/

STAR testing for Cupertino Union School District's Eisenhower Elementary 2nd graders

If  you are wondering why a bunch of 7 year old kids in Santa Clara near the Cupertino border look to have a sense of relief, it's because Cupertino Union School District's Eisenhower Elementary 2nd graders just completed their STAR tests this past week.


Each spring, all students in California from grades two through eleven take the state's Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) exams, a battery of standardized tests.

The California STAR Program looks at how well schools and students are performing. Based on STAR tests and the California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE), California assigns an Academic Performance Index (API) rating and growth target to each school and district. Ratings range from 200 to 1000, with a goal of 800 API for all schools statewide.


The STAR Program includes four tests: the California Standards Tests, the California Modified Assessment, the California Alternate Performance Assessment, and the Standards-based Tests in Spanish.

The STAR program used to include the California Achievement Test, Sixth Edition Survey (CAT/6), but this test was eliminated in the 2008-2009 school year.


The test taken by the majority of students is the California Standards Tests (CST).

In 2nd grade through 11th grade, the CST covers English-language arts. In 2nd grade through 7th grade, the test also covers math.

Additional tests are added at various grade levels. The CST adds a history-social science test for 8th grade, 10th grade and 11th grade. The CST adds a science test for 5th grade, 8th grade, and 10th grade. The CST also adds a math and science test for students in 9th, 10th, and 11th grade. The test they take depends on which math and science course they are enrolled in that school year, such as algebra, geometry, physics, or chemistry.

The STAR - CalEdFacts page provides a more detailed overview of the program.
For more information, you can also visit California Department of Education Testing and Accountability.

How API Growth Targets are Set

The State Board of Education set the statewide API target at 800 out of a possible 1,000. The Public Schools Accountability Act calls for most schools to improve their performance each year by 5% of the difference between their API and the statewide target of 800, with a minimum target of five points’ growth.

For example, a school with an API of 340 would have a growth target of 23.
A school with an API between 691 and 795 would need to gain five points.
A school with an API between 796 and 799 would have a growth target of the difference between its API and 800.
A school that is at or above 800 is expected to stay above that threshold.
ASAM schools, special education centers, and schools without valid Base API scores have no growth targets.

A school's Base API score plus its growth target becomes that school's goal for its next Growth API. The process repeats each year.

In 1998–99, the first year of the API program, 13% of elementary schools, 11% of middle schools, and 5% of high schools reached or exceeded 800 on the Growth API. In most years since then, the percentages have edged upwards. In 2010, 51% of elementary schools, 40% of middle schools, and 25% of high schools scored at least 800 points on the Growth API.

When the Growth API is calculated, a school gets more credit for improvements at the bottom of the performance range than the top, creating an incentive for schools to focus on their lowest-performing students.

School districts do not receive API scores under the Public Schools Accountability Act. However, to comply with the state's No Child Left Behind (NCLB) plan, API has been added as an additional criterion for school districts. The district Growth API, for 2010–11, must be at least 710 or one point above the Base API. For each subsequent year the required Growth API score for NCLB will increase by 30 points until it reaches 800 in 2013–14. Under NCLB, API scores are also given to county offices of education when they operate schools directly.

Academic Performance Index (API) Reports for California Public Schools

The Academic Performance Index (API) is a measurement of academic performance and progress of individual schools in California. The API is calculated using results of the STAR (Standardized Testing and Reporting) program and the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE). In 2009–10, STAR consisted of four types of tests, but not all of them were used in the API. The four tests included the California Standards Tests (CSTs) which examine students' proficiency on academic content standards in a variety of subjects. STAR also included the California Alternative Performance Assessment (CAPA) for students with severe cognitive disabilities, the California Modified Assessment (CMA) for students for whom the CAPA and CSTs are not appropriate, and one test (Standards-based Tests in Spanish) taken by certain Spanish-speaking English learner students. The Spanish tests are not part of the API calculation, but the rest are. The weight of each of these tests in a school's API score varies depending on several factors, but the CSTs generally play the lead role.

The test scores for students not continuously enrolled in a school since October of the school year are not counted in the school's API. Special Education students who are exempted and students whose parents requested that they not be tested are also not counted.

API scores ranges from a low of 200 to a high of 1000. The first step in calculating the API is to divide a school's individual student scores in each subject into five performance bands. The performance bands for California Standards Test (CST) results are labeled advanced, proficient, basic, below basic, and far below basic.

The next step is to apply weights to the percent of students with scores in each performance band (least weight for the lowest bands). These are summed to give a value for the subject.

Then each subject area and test is given a weight within the index. The weights depend on which tests are given to each grade in each school. For example, a high school’s Base API includes CAHSEE results.

The Base API scores vary school by school, depending on students’ grade levels and the number of students tested. The calculation also depends on the number of valid test scores at the school.

Finally, the resulting scores are added to become one number for each school—its API. A school district's API is the sum total of all the student (not school) scores.

A caveat: Although the API is meant as a measure of academic growth, it is not intended to track the school’s growth over several years. The meaningful comparison is within each annual API cycle, between the Base API and the Growth API, because the computation of the API is kept as similar as possible within each cycle.

The incorporation of new elements into the index at the beginning of an API base/growth cycle can lead to unintentional or confusing fluctuations in API scores compared with scores from the previous cycle. The state adjusts API scores to compensate for the effect of those new elements. The mechanism for that technical adjustment is called the scale calibration factor. Even so, the CDE warns against tracking the scores year to year. A better comparison is to look at whether a school or district consistently meets its growth targets or to consider the amount of growth year to year. Even within a cycle, the students represented in each year are different. For example, in a K–6 school, you have a group of 2nd–6th graders present in year one, but in year two the 2nd graders are new and the 6th graders from year one are gone.

API County List of Schools
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