By Sara Ballenger
The California Teachers Association State Council is asking schools statewide, including those in Los Altos, to protest the reward system by rejecting the monetary awards given by the state to schools who have shown the required minimum growth in their Academic Performance Index (API).
The API is part of The Public Schools Accountability Act (PSAA). Passed into law in 1999, the law tracks and compares growth in schools’ academic performance and rewards schools that meet their performance goals, according to the state Department of Education.
A school’s API ranking is based on students collective scores on the Star and Stanford Achievement Test Form 9 tests, and is meant to indicate how well a school performs.
In addition to ranking schools, the API is used to determine eligibility for the monetary awards, according to the state Department of Education. The goal of the reward system for schools is to increase test scores.
So why don’t California teachers like the API ranking system?
“Most of the teachers don’t see the Star as a really viable assessment system of the work we do,” said Mountain View High School Assistant Principal Matt Neely. “I think most people know that it’s an affluence index, it’s poorly aligned with our curriculum and has nothing to do with the kind of school we are,” he said.
Los Altos High School increased test scores this year enough to receive an API monetary award. Los Altos High School had an API gross score of 777 for the 1999-2000 school year, an increase of +42 points, according to the California Department of Education.
“The information we have from the state now amounts to $591.32 per full-time equivalent employee,” said Robyn Phillips, associate superintendent of business services for the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District. “A total of $67,730 will be given to staff and an equal amount will be given to the school site council to be used for student services,” Phillips said.
“So all staff employed in the 2000-2001 school year, including classified personnel, will be receiving checks by June 30,” she said. Only employees at schools with a sufficient increase in test scores will receive the award.
“The recommendation (to refuse the awards) has been made, and it’s going to be up to the individual teachers,” said Galen Rosenberg, an English teacher at Los Altos High School.
“I know that several teachers have already indicated they are going to redirect the money to make a public statement about what’s wrong with this system,” he said. By law teachers are required to accept the money and must pay taxes on it, Rosenberg said. Rosenberg is thinking of putting his reward money in a scholarship fund or donating it to an organization that is fighting against the API testing system.
Rosenberg said he understands why some teachers may decide to keep the award.
“On a practical level, you’re a new teacher and you’re trying to pay rent, it’s nice to have an extra $500 to do that. I sympathize with that,” Rosenberg said.
Rosenberg’s colleagues at Mountain View High School are not receiving any API reward money because the school did not meet the 5 percent API growth increase in their API score. Mountain View High School had an API gross score of 788 for the 1999-2000 school year, which was an increase of only 21 points, according to the California Department of Education.
Mountain View High School, in the same district as Los Altos High, met all of their growth targets accept for one, Neely said.
“Your overall improvement can meet the target, but if one of your sub-groups doesn’t meet the target, you don’t meet your overall target and you don’t get the reward money,” Rosenberg said.
“There’s a few reasons why I am bothered by the merit pay system,” said April Oliver, an English teacher at Los Altos High. “It pits different school districts against each other, and it even pits schools against each other within a district.”
She gave the example that LAHS is getting the API reward money and MVHS is not. “There is just no way to argue that we are doing a significantly better job than Mountain View is,” she said. “It’s just luck.
Oliver added that it’s important to remember that the protest is over a flawed testing system and what the monetary compensation represents, not the fact that schools and teachers are receiving money,
“I think its hard when you get a check to think that you don’t deserve it, because they (the teachers) do deserve it,” she said. “Teachers need to be valued as professionals. A test is not the measure for that.”
The API growth reports are posted online at api.cde.ca.gov.
