The uphill battle continues for Morgan Hill schools. While
students’ test scores are improving, making for moderate gains over
other similar schools in the state, these gains don’t stand out
much, state data shows.
The uphill battle continues for Morgan Hill schools. While students’ test scores are improving, making for moderate gains over other similar schools in the state, these gains don’t stand out much, state data shows.
Although more than half of Morgan Hill’s 15 schools improved their scores when ranked with their peers, 10 of Morgan Hill Unified School District’s schools ranked average or worse than those same peers on the 2008 Academic Performance Index, which was released by the California Department of Education on Thursday.
The API is a hodgepodge of test scores at the state and national level, including the Stanford Achievement Test and the California Standards Test. Scores can range from 200 to 1,000, with a goal of 800 or better.
The state then takes each school’s score and compares it with 99 other schools with similar demographics, giving each school a ranking. The 100 schools are chopped into 10 rankings; there are always 10 schools in the first decile, 10 in the second, and so on. The schools with the highest scores land in the 10th decile.
While most Morgan Hill schools improved their ranking since last year, all but three district schools ranked lower than their peers.
Eight district schools improved their rankings, with Barrett and Los Paseos elementary schools leading the crowd with four decile leaps each, ranking them in the sixth decile. San Martin/Gwinn Elementary School also ranked a six, but that represented a fall from the seventh decile the school ranked last year.
School Board President Don Moody said despite the modest improvements, there is “clearly a lot of work ahead.
“There’s plenty of room for improvement,” he said. “We have some programs that are in place that ultimately will be resulting in some improvements. But are these programs truly working? Do we still need to be patient and give (district staff) more time for them to take hold? Is it going to take 10 or 15 years? That’s too long.”
Moody noted that there are “fixes in place” to remedy some of the more troubling numbers, which are already a year old.
“Fortunately, it doesn’t appear we’ve lost any ground,” he said. Ten district schools met their growth target this year, which is usually set at five points more than the previous year. Five of these schools also met the target in each of its subgroups.
The Charter School of Morgan Hill was ranked in the fourth decile, the most striking drop. Last year, the school ranked in the eighth decile. Its API was 848, well above the 800 goal.
Charter School Principal Paige Cisewski said the similar schools ranking is not consistent. Because school demographics change, which schools are compared changes each year.
The scores may not be very different between deciles either, Cisewski said. Still, she admitted, the rankings are useful.
“It’s valuable to be able to use that information and be able to say, ‘Maybe that would be a good school to visit and go see,'” she said. “It’s definitely something to continue to look at.”
Fewer of Morgan Hill’s schools ranked in the lowest decile this year than last, with just El Toro Elementary School and Live Oak High School ranking a one each. Last year, four schools, including El Toro, ranked last.
Esther Corral-Carlson, Morgan Hill Unified School District’s curriculum and assessment coordinator, said the district would continue to work on improving school API scores, and the rankings would follow suit.
“We know that we have an opportunity gap there, and we want to be able to fill that,” she said. “For us, we know it’s our English learners, the socio-economically disadvantaged and special education. By focusing on them, watching what students are doing and finding ways to assist them, you’re going to see them perform better.”
For example, a classroom strategy called “partner talk,” when the teacher asks a question and has students pair up to discuss the answer before presenting it to the class, is a proven method to help English language learners improve their scores, she said. The district has been using the strategy for at least three years, but it needs to be used much more frequently, she said.
Superintendent Alan Nishino could not be reached for comment by press time.
