But Willow Glen High School Principal Elaine Farace said that the state had given the school a three-year combined growth rate of 28 points and that target was met.

"If you add up the first two years, which were 18 and 21 points, and subtract the current year's 10 points, the total equals 29," she said. "We are still ahead of the target by one point."

Willow Glen High was issued a base score of 592 in 1999, and needed to reach a growth target of 602, but instead it exceeded the target and scored 610—leaping 18 points the first year. The next year—2000­01—610 became the school's new base, and the growth target was calculated at 620. Again the school exceeded expectations, leaping 21 points to score 631.

"It's hard to sustain those high growth levels," Farace said. "But it's certainly our goal."

The school is continuing to identify students who need help in reading and math. This fall the high school added an additional seventh period, Farace said. It was implemented specifically to work with students who require extra attention in improving their basic skills.

"You certainly don't want to panic," said San Jose Unified School District (SJUSD) Governing Board Member Carol Myers. "But when you do see a drop like that, it is worth being concerned about."

Farace said the school has a new "guided study" program for freshmen.

Willow Glen Middle School and the high school are working together to identify low-performing students and give them individual attention as they transition into high school.

The school wants to get a jumpstart on helping these students academically, which will improve their overall performance and test scores, Farace said.

The API growth results are calculated from each public school's scores on the Stanford 9 test and the California Standards Test for English. These tests are part of the state's Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) program. The API is the keystone of the state's Public Schools Accountability Act, which Gov. Gray Davis signed into law in 1999.

For the API, each school is given a state-calculated base score between 200 and 800, with 800 being the best. Whatever the initial three-digit score is, a school is then issued a slightly higher three-digit score, called a growth target. These growth targets are usually calculated to be a minimum of about 5 percent of the prior year's base score.

Even if Willow Glen's growth rate only increased 5 percent a year, it could take an estimated 20 years for the school to reach a growth target of 800.

"This gets a little more complicated," said Dr. Aaron Buchanon, the school district's director of academic accountability, "since the federal legislation's No Child Left Behind Act requires schools to meet academic quotas within 12 years."

Willow Glen High School also scores students in three demographic subgroups, which are defined by the California Department of Education (CDE). They are Hispanic or Latino, white (not Hispanic) and the socioeconomically disadvantaged.

These three subgroups also exceeded their growth scores the past two years, but this year the scores dropped. The 424 Hispanic or Latino students tested had a base score this past year of 544 with a growth target of 560, but scores fell short at 531.

The 240 white students who were tested had a 745 base score, with a growth target of 751 but scored 737, and the 265 socioeconomically disadvantaged students tested had a 535 base score with a growth target of 541, but scored 523.

At the state level, if any school met or exceeded its growth targets, they were eligible for financial awards, particularly the Governor's Performance Award, which goes directly to school staff and faculty.

"Schools may be eligible," Myers said, "but there's no money because it's not in the budget because of the slow economy."

Myers' words are echoed bluntly on the CDE's website: "At this time, the 2002­03 California state budget does not have funds for the Governor's Performance Award program for academic growth which occurred in 2001­02."

Just because there is no available monetary reward this year for excelling, schools are still under the pressure to meet their numbers or face possible repercussions.

The results of a school failing to meet growth expectations—two years of unacceptable scores—might cause the school to be taken over by the state.

But Buchanon said that each school is continually keeping its eyes on the available monetary awards.

"There isn't a principal who doesn't take the awards very, very seriously," Buchanon said.