Two elementary schools came out on top, statewide, in the closely watched Base Academic Performance Index results released Thursday by the California Department of Education.
Murdock-Portal Elementary and William Faria Elementary tied for first with API scores of 998. Millikin Elementary, part of the Santa Clara Unified School District, rounded out the top three. This is the second year in a row three Santa Clara County schools were the state's top performers, the county’s Office of Education trumpeted.
Overall, 16 of the 31 top-scoring schools in the state are Santa Clara County schools.
The newly released rankings are based on the Academic Performance Index (API) scores released in August, which in turn are based on student performance on standardized tests given in 2011.
The API is a tool that the state uses in order to rate a school's performance on scale of 200 to 1,000. California's benchmark (expected average) is 800.
The county office said the results also show a trend of higher performance among a broad range of schools in the county, for tests that were taken by students last spring. About 62 percent of county schools met or exceeded the statewide performance target of 800 for the 2011 Base API. That compares with 45 percent statewide.
Almost half of county schools are in the top three deciles (compared to 29 percent statewide). Schools showed a trend of improvement in the county over last year’s results.
“What a fantastic showing by our schools and students,” said Dr. Charles Weis, Santa Clara County Superintendent of Schools.
California uses the API as a measure of student academic progress, and is part of the Public Schools Accountability Act passed by the state Legislature in 1999. The measure includes student assessments in mathematics, English, science and social studies. The API is calculated by converting a student’s performance across multiple areas into points on the API scale. The points are then averaged across all students and all tests, resulting in the API.
The state releases the base API results in the late spring and then the growth API results in the late summer.
Below are some selected tables released by the Santa Clara County Office of Education. Patch will provide more tables detailing the performance of our local schools later Thursday:
Table 3: 2011 Base API, Schools in SCC Achieving the Highest Base API Scores
CA Rank*
School
District
2011 Base API
T 1
Murdock-Portal Elementary
Cupertino Union
998
T 1
William Faria Elementary
Cupertino Union
998
3
Millikin Elementary
Santa Clara Unified
997
5
Herbert Hoover Elementary
Palo Alto Unified
995
11
Nelson S. Dilworth Elementary
Cupertino Union
991
T 15
Garden Gate Elementary
Cupertino Union
988
T 19
Bullis Charter
Santa Clara County Office of Ed.
984
T 19
Argonaut Elementary
Saratoga Union Elementary
984
T 24
Sam H. Lawson Middle
Cupertino Union
983
T 24
John F. Kennedy Middle
Cupertino Union
983
T 24
L. P. Collins Elementary
Cupertino Union
983
T 24
Covington Elementary
Los Altos Elementary
983
T 24
Oak Avenue Elementary
Los Altos Elementary
983
T 29
Tom Matsumoto Elementary
Evergreen Elementary
982
T 31
Joaquin Miller Middle
Cupertino Union
981
T 31
Abraham Lincoln Elementary
Cupertino Union
981
* T indicates a tie.
2011 Base API, Three Highest-Ranked Districts in SCC
SCC Rank*
District
2011 Base API
CA Rank*
T 1
Los Altos Elementary
969
T 1
T 1
Saratoga Union Elementary
969
T 1
3
Lakeside Joint
968
T 4
* T indicates a tie.
