State
Board of Education Approves New School Accountability System to Replace the Old API System
September 8, 2016
SACRAMENTO—As
required by state law, the State Board of Education on September 8, 2016 approved key elements of a new accountability
system that evaluates schools and districts in 10 areas critical to student
performance, including graduation rates,
readiness for college and careers, test scores, and progress of English
learners.
The
system reinforces California’s national leadership in developing an
accountability system designed to help all schools continuously improve.
“Today
the State Board has taken a big step toward improving our accountability
system, as required under the new school funding formula approved by the
Governor and the Legislature. This accountability design is unique and has
never been used before in the United States,” said California State Board of
Education President Michael Kirst. “Parents, educators, and the public will
soon be able to look at a variety of
areas to tell how their school is doing, where it may be strong, where it
may be weak, and where it may need help.”
State
Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson called this a “new system
for a new era.” The changes, which put California on the cutting edge of
innovations that enhance student learning, are happening in a state with the
most diverse student population and with the most students—more than 6.2
million—at more than 10,000 schools.
“Once
again, California leads the way. No longer will our parents and our communities
be asked to evaluate a school or a district based on a single number,” said
Torlakson. “The new accountability system provides parents, educators, and
community members with a wealth of information, allowing them to dig deep into a variety of areas that
affect student performance and more effectively hold their districts
accountable. It will also help educators more easily identify and assist
schools and districts in need of help.”
The
system gives parents, educators, and the community more tools to understand
what is happening at their schools, promotes equity by helping to identify disparities among student groups,
and more effectively identifies the schools that need extra help and where they
need it.
“Today’s
action will help all students succeed in 21st century careers,” said Torlakson.
The
innovative new system replaces the outdated Academic Performance Index (API),
which relied almost exclusively on test scores to measure progress, and is a
key element of the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), which provides more
local control over revenues and more
resources for students with the greatest needs.
The
board approved actions that make up an “evaluation rubric,” which provides a
tool for holding schools and districts accountable for the eight state
priorities identified in the Local Control Funding Formula, approved by the
Legislature in 2013. Among the priorities are student achievement, student engagement, school climate, and parent
engagement.
The
September 8, 2016 Board actions included:
Adopting
four state indicators of school success with performance standards: readiness for college and careers,
graduation rates, progress of English learners, and suspension rates.
Adopting
two state indicators of school success, with performance standards to be
finalized in the coming months: scores
on state standardized tests and chronic
absenteeism.
Adopting
four local indicators with performance standards: basic conditions at a school, progress in implementing standards, parent engagement, and school climate.
Establishing
a system by which schools that do not
meet performance standards can become eligible for technical assistance and
intervention.
Providing
information on model practices of
schools performing well and providing resources for schools.
The
performance standards will be based on status, how each school or district
fared last year, and change, how much they have improved or declined in the
past three years. Schools will be rated based on a combination of these
measures and assigned one of five performance levels. From highest to lowest,
the categories are: Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, and Red.
The
status and change thresholds were developed by analyzing current data so they
would broadly reflect where districts and schools are now. Using high school
graduation rates as an example, five status levels were set, with a low of a graduation rate of less than 67 percent
(considered very poor) to a high of a 95
percent graduation rate (considered very high). In addition, five rates of
change were set, from a low of a decline of 5 percent or more to a high of an
increase of 5 percent or more.
The
new system provides multiple ongoing measures of school
performance instead of the single, one-item snapshot from the prior system.
The
specific display of the performance system is not final. Staff will work with
parents, teachers, and members of the public to ensure it is easy to
understand, similar to a report card. The Web-based
system will be available in early 2017.
During
today’s meeting, both Kirst and Torlakson thanked employees of the California
Department of Education and educators throughout the state for their hard work
in developing this ground-breaking system and for their future work in
implementing it.
Below
is a copy of the motion approved unanimously on Thursday, September 8, 2016, by
the State Board of Education:
1. Adopt
the LCFF evaluation rubrics with the following components:
o The
concise set of state indicators and local performance indicators approved at
the May and July 2016 State Board of Education meetings.
o Performance
standards for the state indicators and local performance indicators based on
the methodologies approved at the May 2016 State Board of Education meeting and
July 2016 State Board of Education meeting, respectively.
o Criteria
for determining local educational agency eligibility for technical assistance
and intervention under the LCFF statutes based on the performance standards for
the state indicators and local performance indicators.
o Statements
of Model Practices, with the content to be finalized at a future date.
o Links
to external resources, with the content to be finalized at a future date.
2. Approve:
o The
proposed performance standards, based on the approved methodology to establish
cut-scores and performance categories, for the following state indicators:
§ Progress
of English learners toward English
proficiency based on the English learner indicator (Priority 4)
§ High
school graduation rate (Priority 5)
§ College/Career
Indicator, which combines Grade 11 test
scores on English Language Arts and Math and other measures of college and
career readiness (Priorities 7 and 8)
§ Suspension rates by LEA type (elementary,
high, and unified), and by school type (elementary, middle, and high) (Priority
6)
o The
proposed standards for the local performance indicators:
§ Appropriately
Assigned Teachers, Access to Curriculum-Aligned Instructional Materials, and
Safe, Clean, and Functional School Facilities (Priority 1)
§ Implementation
of State Academic Standards (Priority 2)
§ Parent
Engagement (Priority 3)
§ Local
Climate Surveys (Priority 6)
§ Coordination
of Services for Expelled Students (Priority 9—County Office of Education only)
§ Coordination
of Services for Foster Youth (Priority 10—County Office of Education only)
o The
proposed criteria to determine local educational agency eligibility for
technical assistance and intervention under the LCFF statutes.
3. Direct
CDE staff to develop a recommendation for the November 2016 SBE meeting on
proposed performance standards, based on the approved methodology to establish
cut-scores and performance categories, for the state indicator for student test
scores on English Language Arts and Math for grades 3–8, that includes results
from the second year of Smarter Balanced tests.
4. Direct
CDE staff to complete further development work on the College/Career Indicator,
including student course-taking information, and options to measure access to a
broad course of study (Priority 7) as a state indicator, for the next phase of
the evaluation rubrics.
5. Direct
CDE staff to further develop the content for the statements of model practices
and links to external resources so those components can be incorporated into
the Web-based user interface in the future.
6. Approve
the proposed annual process for the SBE to review the evaluation rubrics to
determine whether newly available data and/or research support the inclusion of
a new state or local performance indicator or substituting such an indicator
for an existing indicator.
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Tom Torlakson — State Superintendent of Public
Instruction
Communications Division, Room 5206, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100
Last Reviewed: Thursday, September 8, 2016
Release:
#16-59
September 8, 2016
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