FUHSD test scores earn them monetary awards

Five high school all exceed their target scores for year

By Kevin Fayle

On Dec. 7, the California Department of Education released its final academic performance index (API) reports to the public. The reports included releases for the five Fremont Union High School District schools, which showed the schools in the district shattered their growth targets and qualified for two monetary awards in honor of their performances.

The department of education calculates the API based on the performance of a school's students on the Stanford-9 test, administered as part of the state's standardized testing and reporting (STAR) program. The index arose as part of the Public Schools Accountability Act (PSAA) of 1999, and sets a numerical standard that evaluates the current performance level of a particular school. The index ranges from a low score of 200 to a high score of 1000. The state wants all schools to score at least an 800 on the API, and sets yearly growth targets for every school until they reach that level.

According to Assistant Superintendent Mary Stone, all five high schools will receive the Governor's Performance Award, authorized by the PSAA that will donate around $68 per test-taking student to each of the schools. The schools also qualified for the School Site Employee Performance Bonus, which comes from a state pool of funds that will go to full-time staff at every qualifying school. The state still has to tally the number of staff members statewide who will receive the bonus before announcing its amount, but Stone estimates each staff member will receive between $700 and $1,000.

Stone praises the work of students and teachers in raising the scores, adding, "it's even harder when you're already a high-performing district."

Stone says the district uses the index as a tool to demonstrate where it can better address the needs of the students. The district shares scores with teachers so that a low-scoring student can receive more personalized attention.

Every school in FUHSD exceeded its growth target, often by a double-digit margin. Cupertino High School scored a 735 on the API last year, and had a growth target of three points for this year. The school scored a 777 on the API this year, however, giving it an actual growth of 42 points. Fremont High School in Sunnyvale scored at 627 last year, and its growth target stood at nine points. This year, the school scored a 643 on the index. Homestead High School also had a growth target of three points after scoring a 749 on last year's test, but they far surpassed the target, raising their score by 30 points to 779.

Monte Vista and Lynbrook High schools both had the highest scores in the county, with only a four-point difference between them. Both Lynbrook and Monta Vista scored above 800 last year, earning scores of 867 and 854, respectively.

Because the two schools scored above the target of 800, neither had a growth goal for this year. Regardless, their scores did grow: Lynbrook High scored an 890 this year, a 23-point improvement over last year, and Monta Vista High gained 40 points on their score from last year, giving the school a score of 894 for this year.

The schools' performances qualified them for extra financial support from the state: Awards that go to schools that meet their growth targets. One condition of the awards states the scores of ethnic and socio-economically disadvantaged subgroups within the schools must meet the growth target, as well. Thus, for Fremont High School, which has four ethnic subgroups, the scores for each group must have improved by nine points, the school's growth target, to qualify for the awards.

According to Stone, FUHSD doesn't model its curriculum around the tests, but it does use the tests to discover where it needs to raise the bar to meet state and national standards.

"We believe in continuous improvement," Stone says. "No matter how high the scores are, we can continue to improve what we're doing. We really want to make it even better."

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