California parents have yet another way to assess how their local schools are doing.
The California Charter Schools Association has developed a new metric, called a Similar Student Measure [PDF], to assess how a school's students perform on state tests compared to other schools serving similar students. The measure is used to identify which schools overperform or underperform over a three-year period by comparing a school's Academic Performance Index to a predicted API that controls for the impact of students' background in those schools.
The measure was developed to assess how charter schools are doing compared to regular public schools, but could have wider utility for the majority of schools in California.
They claim their methodology is superior to the state's "similar schools ranking".
My school is a member of CCSA and I do assessment stuff so I was at the conference last year when they first introduced this new metrix. I'm NOT all about standardized testing but I do think its more accurate than the states basic metric. Take my school for example, we get lots of students who either drop out of regular public school or are falling behind. That isn't good for our API/AYP but we serve a population few other schools want.
ReplyDelete