Newsroom
Riverside County Superintendent of Schools
comments on 2011 Accountability Progress Report
Riverside County Superintendent of Schools Kenneth M. Young today (August 31, 2011) issued the following statement on the newly released 2011 Accountability Progress Report for schools.
“Year-in and year-out, Riverside County’s students are improving faster than most other students in the state. This new data bears that out. Among the state’s 16 large counties, our students scored the fourth-largest gain on this year’s state Academic Performance Index. We scored the third-largest API gain over the span of the last dozen years, and in the English Language Arts portion of the federal AYP testing, we led all large counties in improvement over that extended period.
“Now, we know we can, and must, do better. And as the federal No Child Left Behind standards continue to rise, we’ll be like other counties: More of our schools will be challenged to hit those moving targets. But Riverside County’s students continue to gain ground on the rest of the state’s largest counties. That’s because Riverside County’s schools are sustaining a culture of improvement.”
Results in the state report generally show Riverside County consolidating the gains it ran up in recent years. Four years ago, Riverside ranked 10th in API rankings among the state’s 16 large counties. By last year it had moved into 8th. This year, with only Orange County gaining more ground, Riverside is a scant 1 point off the state average and poised to surpass that.
The Accountability Progress Report is comprised of the state Academic Performance Index (API), the federal Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), the federal Program Improvement (PI), and the federal Title III Accountability Report. Because the API and AYP results are drawn from the state’s battery of standardized tests, those scores also reflect the results of California’s STAR testing and high school exit exam (CAHSEE).
When viewed over the 12-year history of this testing regimen, a clear Riverside County trend toward steady improvement emerges.
Some Riverside County highlights in the data:
* In 2011, almost half of the county’s schools exceeded or met the state’s performance target of 800 on the API. In 1999, only 1 percent of the county’s schools made the target.
* All significant student subgroups – most notably Hispanics, African Americans and English learners -- demonstrated improvement in 2011 of 7 to 12 points. This underscores a trend, across the county and statewide, toward closing the achievement gap.
* The federal AYP results show that between 2002 and 2011, Riverside County’s best-in-state gain in English Language Arts was a dramatic 28.2 percent.
Despite gains, the continued rise in No Child Left Behind standards put more Riverside County schools on the state’s Program Improvement (PI) watch list. Seventeen of Riverside County’s 24 Title I school districts are now in PI. For the 2011-12 school year, 158 of the schools in the county (61 percent of Title I schools) are in PI. As No Child Left Behind standards ratchet even farther out of reach next year, an additional 59 Riverside County schools are expected to be at risk for PI. This reflects a widely recognized national trend which is at the center of calls for NCLB reform.
The top 5 Riverside County districts for 2011 API are: Temecula Valley Unified (859), Menifee Union Elementary (843), Murrieta Valley Unified (843), Lake Elsinore Unified (833) and Corona-Norco Unified (815).
The top five districts for 2010-11 API change are: Nuview Union Elementary (38 points), Banning Unified (24 points), Alvord Unified (23 points), San Jacinto Unified (21 points), Lake Elsinore Unified (20 points), and Romoland Elementary (20 points).
For information contact:
Rick Peoples,
Public Information Officer
Telephone: (951) 826-6642
Fax: (951) 826-6199
rpeoples@rcoe.us |
